Der Bestrafer
by stormsiren609
Summary: A strange ship from another dimension has come to port in Neverland. This story is based on Fox's Peter Pan & the Pirates cartoon series.
1. Chapter 1

Der Bestrafer (The Punisher)

An inspirational fanfic based on "Fox's Peter Pan and the Pirates"

by Stormsiren609

_Author's Disclaimer: Please note, I do not own "Peter Pan" or any of the characters originating from that universe - they all belong to J.M. Barrie, or whoever owns his stuff now. Also, there are a few characters in this story that are crossovers from other works of fiction that I do not own either. The only characters that I do claim ownership of are Captain Sturmsirene and her ship, der Bestrafer. Furthermore, I do not make any money from this writing nor do I ever intend to - it is just for fun. Thank you for reading and reviewing!_

**Chapter 1**

It was an unusually dreary morning in Neverland and the sea was strangely calm when the eerie bank of fog began to roll in like a wall of smoke creeping along the surface of the water towards the island, engulfing everything in its path.

Robert Mullins watched it with a widening expression of horror as it gradually approached the _Jolly Roger_. "Avast! Some kinda weird fog rollin' in offa starboard!" he exclaimed to alert the other crewmen nearby, who at the moment happened to be Ingatious Starkey and Alf Mason. "I don't like this, maties," he said as they approached him to see what the fuss was about. "There be evil in this for sure. And none like what we've ever witnessed before in this cursed place. Mark my words!" he insisted. "I think maybe we should rouse the captain."

"Balderdash, Mullins!" Starkey replied brusquely as he took up a position by the railing next to him. "It's just a bit of fog. The captain would certainly have our guts for garters if we bothered him about something so trivial."

"Yeah, Mullins," Mason chimed in gruffly from behind him. "Don't get so hasty, ya lowlife voodoo-faker! I'll not be havin' yer superstitious crag gettin' the capt'n all riled up this early in the mornin'." And with that he punched one of his ham-like fists into the palm of his other meaty hand to emphasize the point.

"Indeed. I, for one, have no desire to start off on the wrong foot with that old sourpuss today," Starkey added pointedly.

"You're fools!" Mullins exclaimed with a tinge of desperation in his voice. "Can't you see there's witchery in this? That ain't no normal fog, cullies. Besides, when was the last time we seen any fog come inta this bay? Never, that's when! Unless you count the day that devilish storm brought us here. It's a bad omen, I'm tellin' yas!"

During this exchange, Billy Jukes had been snoozing quite soundly while leaning against the ship's cannon, Long Tom, on the other side of the deck when he was awakened by Mullins' distressed voice just then and he stumbled over towards the group of older men, still groggy with sleep. He stopped a few feet away from them and rubbed his eyes for a moment with his fists before trying to focus on whatever it was they were looking at over the starboard railing. When he did he sobered up immediately. "Shot, shell, and cartridge...this is too strange for gunnery school," he mumbled with surprise and walked the rest of the way over to stand next to Mullins, putting both of his hands against the railing as he stared at the incredibly thick bank of fog that was nearly upon them now. "What is that?" he asked no one in particular and his eyes widened with rapidly growing anxiety when he saw that the incoming fog stretched across the horizon as far as he could see, with no break in sight.

"It's a harbinger of doom if I ever saw one, Billy boy," Mullins replied gravely. Then he backed away from the railing as the fog began to swallow the ship and he cried out in fear when he felt the coldness of the mist as it settled on the bare portions of his skin.

The other pirates stood fast as the fog blanketed them and spread across the deck behind them to the larboard side of the ship, continuing its way on to the shoreline past them, and they all shivered with the sudden drop in temperature.

"That's it, maties, I'm gettin' up the capt'n," Mullins said as he started to make his way towards the door of captain's quarters.

"No, Mullins!" Starkey hissed, and Mason moved after Mullins and grabbed him by the shoulder to stop him.

"Get yer mangy maulers offa me, Mason," Mullins growled angrily as he spun around and pushed the larger man's hand away from him. Then he drew out his cutlass to keep him at bay. "We can't just stand around twiddlin' our thumbs in this bedevilin' mist! Somethin' evil's gonna come out of it any moment now, I can feel it, and we better start makin' some kinda preparations before it's too late."

"Maybe he has a point," Jukes said, going to Mullins' side. "It does seem kind of...unnatural."

"Oh really?" Mason chided. "Well what kinda preparations would ya suggest we be makin', Mullins? Do ya even got any ideas in that mushy head of yers?"

"Even if you're right, Mullins, we have no idea of what to expect, now do we? So then, how can we very well even begin to prepare for it?" Starkey interjected.

"I dunno know yet. But we can't do much of anything without the capt'n's say so first, now can we?" Mullins shot back. "I tells ya what, I'll go get the bosun first. Get him to rouse the capt'n if need be, then if he does get mad he'll take it out on him instead of us," Mullins added with a sneer. "Where is that little Irish welcher anyway?"

"Below deck, takin' inventories in the storage hold last I seen," Mason informed him.

"I'll be right back," Mullins said and then he moved quickly towards the open hatch that lead below deck and disappeared down the ladderwell.

The others stayed where they were, muttering quietly amongst themselves while they waited for him to return with Bosun Smee. They knew that Mullins was probably right about the bosun taking the brunt of the captain's anger in this kind of situation. He had a knack for doing that as Hook had a convenient habit of unloading the bulk of his vile temper upon Smee regardless of who or what was actually the real cause of flaring it up, something that the rest of the crewmen were rather grateful for because it kept a good deal of the heat off of them, and, strangely enough, it didn't seem to bother him so much either.

"Smee!" Mullins called when he spotted him right where Mason had said he was and caught his attention.

"What is it now, Mr. Mullins?" Smee asked mildly, turning about to face him.

"Come up topside, Bosun. Somethin' you should see there," Mullins told him, motioning for him to follow as he turned around to head back the way he'd come.

"Oi, what is it then?" Smee prodded as he followed Mullins out of the storage compartment with a curious expression.

"You'll see. Somethin' strange is goin' on and we're tryin' to decide if it's worth musterin' before the capt'n. Me and Billy think it is but Mason and Starkey disagree. So we thought it best to consult you on it and let you be the one to decide," Mullins explained, trying to make Smee feel important while goading him into taking the responsibility. And it worked.

"Oh, aye, a wise decision, to be sure," Smee replied and he dutifully followed Mullins to the upper deck.

By the time that Mullins and Smee ascended from the hatch, the oppressive gray mist had completely engulfed everything that was normally in site around their ship. Starkey, Mason, and Jukes abruptly ceased their chatter amongst themselves and then stood silently when the other two men approached. The fog was so thick now that they could barely make out the closest piece of shoreline and could see nothing at all beyond it.

"For the love of Molly Maguire!" Smee exclaimed when he beheld the strange site, or rather, the lack thereof. "This is a bewildered kettle of fish now, to be sure!"

"Aye, Bosun," Mullins replied shakily. "It's the work of the Devil, I say! Now, what say you to gettin' up the capt'n so we can start formulatin' some kinda defensive strategy?"

"Err, well now...'tis not even three bells past dawn yet. Mayhap we should wait just a wee bit longer 'fore we go draggin' the good capt'n outa his slumber," Smee replied. "He be needin' his rest, ya know." Captain Hook had not been in the best of moods lately and Smee had already learned the hard way that it was best to just leave him be unless there was a dire emergency that absolutely demanded his immediate attention. He noted the exasperated look that appeared on Mullins' face just then. "Sure now, 'tis not as though there's a lot what can be done about some banjaxed fog...is there, Mr. Mullins?"

"Bah!" Mullins barked. "It's not so much the fog that's got me worried, it's what else might be in it that does. We're just sittin' ducks here right now and if we wait any longer to get some kinda plan together then it might be too late before we even know it! Anything could pop outa this blasted mist at any moment and be right on top of us before we even knew what it was! Believe me, maties, and you know I don't like to admit this, but we need the capt'n right now."

Everyone was silent for a moment and, just then, a low rumble became audible from somewhere out in the shrouded distance. But before anyone could say anything else, Cookson appeared on deck, having emerged from the galley. "Ahoy, and good morgneenz, me cooleez! Breakfeezt eez ready for youz!" he greeted cheerfully as he approached the other pirates. Then his smile faltered when he saw the graven looks on the faces of his shipmates. "Uh...eez better than yesterday's, I promeez!" he tried to assure them.

"Shut yer gob, Cookson!" Mullins hissed at him. "Listen!" he commanded everyone as he cupped his hands to his ears.

"Eh, vwat?" Cookson questioned, but then he also fell silent when he finally noticed the fog that surrounded him as well as the strange noise that was gradually getting louder.

"What did I tell you?" Mullins whispered after a few moments. "We are doomed, I tell you. Doomed! Just as sure as I'm a son of a Brooklyn broom bandit!"

"Oh, I say," Starkey replied with unease as the rumbling sound continued to grow in intensity. It was nothing like anything he'd ever heard before and it frightened him quite a bit. "Perhaps...you're right. I do believe we might be in for a spot of trouble now."

Jukes stood silent, listening intently as he tried to make out the strange noise. The low rumbling had begun to turn into a steady roar as whatever it was that was making it was drawing nearer to their location, and he decided that it sounded mechanical in nature.

"Smee?" Mullins prodded.

"Oh...begorra! I'll be gettin' the Capt'n now," Smee said hastily, and then he darted towards door of the captain's quarters with a nimbleness that belied his age. He rapped on the door quietly at first and when given no response he tried again with more intensity and called out, "Capt'n Hook, Sir?" Then he knocked again, even louder. "Capt'n Hook! Oh, please, Sir, come quick!" he begged fearfully.

Captain James Hook growled with annoyance as he was rudely awakened to the sound of his bosun's urgent calling. "Odds, bobs, hammer and tongs!" he exclaimed as he rubbed his face with his only hand. Then he rose up out of his bed with another growl as the rapping continued and went to the door, opening it to a crack just wide enough that he could see the bosun's worried face peering up at him. "What is it, Smee?" he snapped. "It's barely three bells past, so this had better be important!"

"Oh, aye, Sir, it is! There be some strange occurrences befallin' the _Roger_ this morn', Capt'n, to be sure!" Smee insisted urgently.

Hook sighed with continued annoyance. "Get in here and start explaining yourself while I get dressed," he commanded as he reached out with his hook and snagged Smee by his collar, yanked him inside the cabin, and then slammed the door closed behind him.

"Well, ya see now, Sir, it all started with this gombean fog what seems to've rolled in all of a sudden-like and swallowed up all of Neverland and the _Roger_ right along with it, it has. And, sure now, there be this banjaxed noise what's emanatin' from it, there is. 'Tis got the crew all worked up, Sir. And, oh, Mr. Mullins be mighty upset about it, he is! He thinks it be the Devil hisself that's come to pay us a visit now, to be sure," Smee rattled out as the captain fumbled with his clothing.

Hook had managed to slip his trousers on and was fastening his boots while Smee stood prattling at him near the door. He could fully dress himself on his own but it took him a while to do it with only one real hand to work with and he was in a hurry now that he'd noticed the strange noise coming from somewhere outside. When his boots were finally secured he bolted to his feet from the chair he'd been sitting in, holding up his trousers with his hand since the fly was still unbuttoned, that being one of the hardest things for him to accomplish during his dressing routine. "Don't just stand there yammering, Smee. Get over here and assist me with my regalia, you contemptible cur!" he commanded the bosun with urgency.

"O-Oh, aye, Sir, begging your pardon!" Smee responded apologetically (even though he had a slight suspicion that if he'd offered his assistance before being asked for it then the captain would've probably gotten even more aggravated) and he rushed over to comply with him. He quickly fastened the captain's trousers for him as Hook put on his blouse and then Smee helped him with his jacket and cloak. Finally, Hook slipped his glove onto his left hand using his split claw as a vice to grip it with and then Smee handed him his hat, which the captain snatched from him with his hand just before bolting to door of his cabin, kicking it open, and striding out of it. He situated the hat on his head after he'd cleared the threshold with Smee flanking him.

"Gall and brimstone!" Hook cried, coming to a halt when the clammy fog hit him in the face and he looked around to see that there was nothing else that could be seen past the railings on either side of the ship. "What cozening is this?" he demanded to know.

The rest of the men had moved to create a formation in front of the captain and Smee went to join them, awaiting further orders.

"It's bad business, I tell ya. We're all gonna be in Davy Jones' Locker before eight bells!" Mullins piped up.

"Button your lungbox, Mullins, lest I loosen it from its moorings," Hook growled as he made his way to the starboard railing and cocked his head to one side, listening to the strange noise that seemed to be coming from somewhere off in that direction. "What in the name of Mullingar Heifer...?"

"I think it's some kind of...engine...Captain," Jukes informed him.

"An engine, Mr. Jukes?" Hook questioned, turning about to face the young man.

"Aye, Sir. But not steam powered. I don't know what it is exactly, it's not like anything I've ever heard before...but it definitely sounds mechanical to me," Jukes replied.

"So, you think it's a ship then?" Hook asked. He understood that as the ship's inventor, Jukes was rather mechanically inclined, and so the captain was inclined to trust his judgment on this particular matter. He also found the idea that the noise was coming from a machine rather than some kind of apparition as Mullins thought much more palatable to his sensibilities.

"I guess so, Sir. I mean, I don't know what else it could be since whatever it is, it's coming in from the sea," Jukes responded.

"Run out Long Tom, Mr. Jukes, and make ready to fire on my command. Mullins, Starkey, you will assist him. The rest of you dogs will stand ready for my orders, which you will carry out just as soon as I figure out what they are," Hook commanded.

Jukes positioned Long Tom near the starboard railing and primed the cannon while Mullins went about reorganizing the pile of round shot nearby and Starkey went below deck to gather some chain, grape, and bar shot just in case they might need that too. The rest of the crewmen stood near Hook waiting to be told what to do.

Hook began pacing fervently about the deck as the roar in the distance began to reverberate around them making it even more difficult to discern the exact direction that it was coming from. "Mason, Cookson, man the capstan and hoist the anchor. Smee, get to the helm!" Hook commanded and they jumped to comply. Several minutes later, once the anchor was raised and secured, Hook went over to Mason and shoved a spyglass into his hand. "Get up to the crow's nest, you scurvy dog, and keep a weather eye off the starboard bow!"

"Aye, aye, Capt'n!" Mason replied, and then he hastily made his way up the mainmast to comply with his order.

Whatever it was that was making that weird mechanical roaring sound had gotten close enough to the _Roger_ that the throbbing noise of it could now be felt as well as heard by every pirate on board. And it was making them all very nervous. Even Captain Hook's hackles were raised by it and his hook twitched with anticipation as he expected whatever it was to come into view at any moment. He now had the crew, except for Jukes and Smee, who remained at their respective posts, tending to the riggings of the mainsail, preparing it to catch the slight breeze that was blowing, in case the need should arise to move the ship.

"Avast!" came Mason's call from the crow's nest. "There's somethin' comin' in off the starboard bow!" he bellowed down. His voice could barely be heard over the loud, steady roar that was now intermingled with a low, pulsating hum and some rhythmic thumping and clanking noises that coursed through the water and the misty air all around the _Roger_.

"What is it, Mason?" Hook bellowed up at him.

"I don't know, Sir!" replied Mason. "It...it's...BIG!"

Hook moved quickly to the starboard railing near the bow and began scanning the fog with his own spyglass, desperately searching for whatever it was that Mason had apparently spotted out there. When he still couldn't find it after several moments he lowered his spyglass in frustration and then was shocked when he finally noticed the darkened silhouette of a massive object that was beginning to pass right by them in the water less than a hundred yards away. It was so massive and so close now that trying to look at it with a telescopic lens was a futile endeavor that actually prevented one from seeing it at all. He stared at it intently with his naked eyes, trying to discern the nature of the oddly shaped vessel. It was indeed some kind of ship but nothing even remotely like he'd ever imagined. Just then there was a low, thundering blare as the thing emanated a new, even stranger sound that was almost deafening. It sounded like a whole bunch of ungodly horns being sounded altogether at once and the horrendous cacophony literally shook every fiber of every object and person that consisted of Hook's ship and crew. Hook wondered what it could mean; a warning, perhaps? The sound lasted for a good ten seconds at least and when it finally ceased, the echo it created continued to resound about the bay for several more moments and it was so abrasive that it even seemed to have jarred loose the clinging fog that surrounded its source so that the vessel itself became clearer in view. And what Hook saw then sent him into a tizzy as he tried to process the mind-numbing complexity of it. "Great gobs of galleon grease, what _is_ that wretched thing!?" he exclaimed with a confounded expression.

The ship, if it could even be called that, was made up of a great menagerie of odd structures of all different shapes and sizes and they were so clustered amongst themselves that Hook could not even see the deck, if there even was one at all. Most notable to him were what appeared to be several masts with no sails and three vertical cylinders from which poured great gobs of black smoke. Also, attached to the side of the vessel near the waterline there were several long, serrated extensions, blackish in color, that were suspended outwards at a uniform angle as they each protruded from a series of rectangular slits in a large section of the hull that appeared to be dedicated solely to their operation. And that was only the tip of the iceberg. The stem of the ship was triangular at the waterline but then it turned into a star-shaped bulge that protruded bluntly outward over the water where the bowsprit should be and it was covered with rows and rows of thick, black spikes, as if the structure was made for ramming or plowing through any manner of solid material that was unlucky enough to come into its path. Right above that was what appeared to be a massive T-shaped forecastle that was bespeckled with dozens and dozens of portholes. Beyond that were many more strange objects and towering structures that were clustered towards the stern of the vessel and it wasn't worth the effort to try and describe them all.

As the vessel made its way past the _Roger_ and became broadside to them, Hook had to close his eyes for a moment and shake his head to dispel the sensation of vertigo that its imposing visage beset him with. When he looked at it again it seemed as though more of the fog had cleared away from it in that very moment. The entire apparatus and most everything that was attached to it appeared to be made of a solid, gray metal that was streaked with rust and tar. And then he also noticed the burnt-orange colored block letters that were stenciled into what he supposed could be referred to as the starboard bow of the ship: BESTRAFER. He assumed that to be the name of this monstrous scow. "Bestrafer," he said out loud, tasting the strange word in his mouth. He had no idea what it meant and he wasn't quite sure that he ever wanted to find out. Whatever this thing was he was certain that it had indeed come straight out of Hell and he could scarcely imagine what manner of foul creatures might happen to crew on such a beastly monstrosity. There was no trace of a standard to be seen upon it, either. "What in the name of Lucifer's hind leg...?!"

"Begging your pardon, Captain," Starkey replied with his eyes bulging, "but I do believe that _is_ Lucifer's hind leg!"

"Aye! That devil ship makes the return of the _Rake_ look like a Sunday sailboat ride in Prospect Park!" Mullins exclaimed with panic in his voice.

"Sweet Mary Murphy's mother!" Smee cried as the _Bestrafer_ trudged her way past them, eventually rearing her ugly aft section that churned up the otherwise calm seawater into a frenzy of waves that began to tussle the _Roger_ violently as though she had been struck by the gale-force winds of a sudden storm.

"Hard to starboard, Smee!" Hook commanded. "Bring her head about, into the breakers!"

The _Roger_ was turned so that the cresting waves broke against her stem instead of the broadside of the ship before the threat of being scuppered by them became too serious, and shortly afterwards the waves subsided as the _Bestrafer_ began to disappear back into the more distant fog. And a few minutes later, after she was out of sight, the sea was calm again.

Although no one aboard the _Roger_ could see her anymore for the time being, the _Bestrafer_ remained nearby. Her engine was shut off after she was moored near the coast of Neverland at a location where she would become fully visible to Hook and his crew again once the fog had cleared away entirely. And later on that day, it did.

* * * * * *


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Sturmsi's first day in Neverland was a rather eventful one.

At first it seemed to her like any regular island despite its odd and exceptionally isolated location. She did sense something kind of strange about it but she couldn't quite place her finger on it. So she decided to lead a shore party with Freddy and Jason to investigate the atoll and search for any useful items that might happen to exist upon it.

Once ashore the trio stayed together for a while, combing the beaches and checking out some of the surrounding forest, but then after some time of finding nothing of particular interest, Sturmsi decided that it might behoove them to split up for a while. "Ok, you know what?" she said abruptly, coming to a halt, and then she spun about to face the two men-things that were following her. Freddy and Jason stopped in their tracks as well and then just looked at her expectantly. "You two keep searching this woods," she told them sternly, "while I head back towards the shore and continue searching the perimeter. That should increase our probability of making some kind of noteworthy discoveries here, if there are any to be made. If you do happen to find something of interest just take note of it, then go back to the motorboat and await my return. Then I will decide what to do next."

"Aye, Captain," Freddy responded and then Jason grunted his affirmative as well.

And with that, Sturmsi made her way past her crewmen by trudging hastily between them as she headed back in the direction they'd come from. Freddy and Jason both turned to watch her leave for a few moments and then they glanced at each other briefly before turning back around to continue onwards and make their way deeper into the forest as ordered. They were actually looking forward to being in the absence of their captain's immediate presence for a while.

- - - - - -

Sturmsi eventually found her way to the Mermaids' Lagoon, unaware that that's what it was, and she decided to check it out. She peered into its crystal clear water with much curiosity. She had never before laid eyes on water that clear which had not been purified by some artificial means and so it fascinated her quite a bit. Then, after a few moments, she noticed a pair of almost-human looking eyes staring back at her from under the water. She stared back at them with even more curiosity. She wondered, were there other sentient beings in this place? She also noticed that the eyes seemed to be calling to her in a strange sort of way that she wasn't able to describe. She leaned closer to the water in order to get a better look at them. The eyes, which were violet in color, kept staring back at her as well, and eventually a very feminine looking face appeared under the water around the eyes.

The mermaid was thinking, who the hell is this? Why would a grown human woman be in Neverland? There had never been one of those here before. The mermaid felt rather threatened by the newcomer and thus she decided to see if it could be lured into the water so that it could be drowned right proper. Even though, to the mermaid, the "lady" was very ugly, probably the ugliest one that she'd ever seen in her life, she wasn't about to tolerate the chance, however slight as it may be, of it stealing away any of Peter's already way-too-divided attention from her and her sisters. Wendy was bad enough to deal with so they certainly didn't need another female on the island vying for Peter's affections, even though it was such a hideous one that it most certainly wouldn't stand any real chance of being successful at attracting him. It actually made Wendy look like a beauty queen. Hell, it even made Old Crooked Tail look like a beauty queen! Nonetheless, she thought, it was better to be safe than sorry. Peter did have very odd tastes after all.

The mermaid carefully drew closer to the strange woman on the shore and it seemed to her as though it was falling for the old routine very easily. Almost too easily. But the mermaid surmised that the foolish wench was an exceptionally weak-minded one that perhaps had never actually seen a mermaid before. And maybe it was simply spellbound by the mermaid's vastly superior beauty. That wouldn't surprise her at all. She actually felt sorry for it, almost enough for a moment to make her think twice about trying to kill it, but then she decided that she would be doing the poor thing a favor by putting it out of its misery. The mermaid kept her alluring gaze fixed firmly upon the woman's eyes as she pushed her head up out of the water and then began to sing a sultry siren's song: "_Don't you wish you could be like me? Come with me, I will show you how. Don't you wish you could be with me? Come with me, I will allow you. Come with me, now. You know you want to. I know what you want. I have what you want. I am what you want. Come with me down below, where we will be together as one and all your worries will fade away, forever more._"

Sturmsi blinked a few times and looked at the mermaid like it was on crack. She couldn't understand any of the words that it was singing and the tune didn't appeal to her either. However, she stood her ground and continued to stare at the mermaid's eyes, fascinated by them. This was, in fact, the first real mermaid that she'd ever seen before in her already considerably long life and so she couldn't help but be rather intrigued by it. She wondered, what kind of strange place was this anyway? And why had she been attracted to it? She'd told her crewmen that they should investigate it for useful materials and interesting artifacts but she sensed that there was something more to it than that. However, she was, for the time being, unable to determine with any certainty as to what that might happen to be. She wasn't used to this kind of uncertainty, but instead of feeling depressed or fearful about it she actually felt kind of excited in a way that she'd never had before, and so she found herself welcoming the unusual sensation.

The mermaid became rather frustrated when it appeared as though her song wasn't having quite the desired effect on the woman that she was singing it to. She noticed that its mind, or parts of it at least, seemed to be elsewhere instead of completely on her, and that made her angry. No human had ever resisted her song before! She suddenly reached out of the water with her hand in a fury and grasped the woman by its wrist, then she yanked it as hard as she could, trying to pull the woman into the water with her so that it could finally be dragged underneath to the watery doom that awaited it.

Sturmsi was quite startled by this abrupt action and before she could even begin to react to it, she found herself canting forwards and then she fell face-first into the water with a great splash. The mermaid kept a firm hold of her wrist as it turned and quickly dove into a deeper section of the lagoon, dragging her along beside it as it went down. Sturmsi pondered the situation in a clam sort of bewilderment as she continued to be pulled into the depths. Just what did this thing think that it was doing, anyway? Sturmsi hadn't bothered to pay much attention to tales of mermaids in the past but she had heard enough of them to at least remember a few choice pieces. She suddenly recalled something about mermaids and/or sea-sirens trying to charm people, especially sailors, with their music only to drag them under the water so that they could be killed, usually for no apparent reason. And so, she surmised, that was apparently what this mermaid intended to do with her. This realization caused a shrewd smile to appear on Sturmsi's face just then and, with that, her face started to change in another much less pleasant way.

Once the mermaid thought that they were plenty deep enough, she finally turned around to face her quarry, fully expecting to see a mere corpse already since the pathetic thing hadn't even bothered to put forth any kind of a struggle. What she saw then, however, set her fragile mind spinning in quite a tizzy. She wasn't looking at a woman any longer. It had inexplicably turned into something that resembled a horribly mutated crocodile, as if crocodiles weren't already horrible enough as they were under normal circumstances. It was absolutely the most horrid thing that she'd ever laid her eyes upon. And, even worse, it was anything but dead or even dying. It seemed to be smiling and leering at her in a very unsettling way, as if the monster's visage wouldn't have been plenty unsettling enough without that hungry expression etched into it, and the sight of this sent such a chill down the mermaid's fishy spine that for a good long moment she was completely paralyzed by it. Then she finally looked down at the hand which was attached to the wrist that she was still holding onto and she screamed in terror when she saw the thick plate-like scales that now covered it as well as the wicked talons that had inexplicably protruded from its fingers. She let go of it abruptly and jerked her hand back away from it to hold it against her chest as if it had just been scalded. She was completely disgusted and utterly horrified by the unexpected transformation that had just taken place. Then the thing started making some kind of weird noises, deep grating sounds that echoed under the water and came from its maw, which was filled with many crowded shark-like teeth. The mermaid shrieked again and turned tail to flee as quickly as possible. But then she felt a searing pain in her tail and discovered that she wasn't going anywhere. She turned her head around to see that a bright red cloud had appeared in the water directly behind her. It was blood, her own blood, and there was so much of it that she could no longer even see the thing which had latched onto her. It was, perhaps, a small mercy that she couldn't.

Sturmsi had snagged the side of the mermaid's tail with the newly sprouted claws of the same hand that she'd been dragged into the water by when the fishy little bitch had tried to swim away from her. She had sunk her talons deep into the mermaid's flesh to keep it from escaping and then she thrust her head forward and snapped the end of its tail clean off with her jaws, thus sealing its fate. The mermaid continued to shriek in terror and pain as Sturmsi yanked it back into the cloud of its own rapidly escaping blood. Then she reached forth with her free hand and grasped it by the throat, cinching her elongated fingers completely around it and squeezing tightly enough to thoroughly crush its gullet, thus silencing its screams forever. Once the mermaid had finally stopped trashing and twitching, Sturmsi turned and began to swim back up towards the shore, swiftly propelled through the water by her thick reptilian tail, and she dragged the slain creature along with her as she went. Her claws were still dug deeply into the remainder of its tail and the rest of its body (and blood) trailed behind it like the remnants of an abused rag doll as Sturmsi ascended through the brackish lagoon with the newly dead corpse in tow.

- - - - - -

Unbeknownst to either the hapless mermaid or Sturmsi, another mermaid had been watching the both of them from a distance while staying well hidden behind the thick shoal of a corral reef relatively nearby. It was Old Crooked Tail. She'd spied the other mermaid swimming by with her catch just a little while earlier and had decided to follow with the intention of lending some kind of aid to the woman she'd thought, at first, was a hapless victim in need of some assistance. However, she'd stayed herself from making an appearance just in time to remain undiscovered when she'd seen the startling transformation take place, and then she'd darted to her current hiding spot with much trepidation in order to watch what would happen next from what she could only hope was a safe enough distance. There were many strange creatures that abounded in Neverland and Crooked Tail had been around long enough to see them all, or so she'd thought. But this one was new, even to her, and her sharp instincts told her that there was something quite dreadful about it. She also had a sneaking suspicion that it had come from that strange new ship that was currently moored in the bay, which gave her the heebie-jeebies every time that she happened to look at it. The "BESTRAFER", it was apparently called. Whatever that meant. She shuddered just thinking about it. She didn't know exactly how or why, but she knew that there was something just plain awful about it.

She was suddenly jarred from her thoughts as a gasp of horror escaped from her and she clasped both of her hands to her mouth to silence herself when she witnessed the merciless slaughter that promptly took place right before her. Even though she didn't care very much for any of her sisters, since they all had been treating her as an outcast for so long, and even though she knew that the mermaid in question had probably deserved what she'd gotten, at least to some extent, she still felt quite revolted by the bloody act that was carried out so mercilessly upon her nonetheless. The strange creature which had committed it quite obviously had never been in any actual danger of being drowned and it could have, and probably should have, just let her go. The offending mermaid would have retreated to the Grotto to tell her sisters about the strange being and to warn them all to stay the hell way from it, and they most likely would never have bothered it again. But no...for whatever reason, the creature had wanted blood...and death...and it had gotten both of those things quite easily. And it seemed to have relished the act quite a lot more than what Crooked Tail thought was right for anyone who possessed any considerable amount of morality in their being. Therefore, Crooked Tail decided, this strange new creature was, indeed, quite evil. Once it had vacated the scene and was far enough away that Crooked Tail felt safe enough to leave her hiding place, the old green-skinned mermaid made for her chariot that was parked a little ways behind her and leapt upon it, spurring her duo of sea-beasts that were reined to it to take her straight to the Grotto so that she could do what her fallen sister had been neglected the chance to do herself, which was to warn the others about the dangerous new arrival in Neverland so that they might be spared the same type of grueling fate.

- - - - - -

Meanwhile, Freddy and Jason were still trudging through the woods. And they didn't notice the two children who were now following them. Tiger-Lily and Hard-To-Hit were silently stalking the two odd strangers, watching their every move, and unlike them the young Indians moved as quietly as smoke through the thick foliage without being detected. They were getting dangerously close to the Indian Village and the two youngsters were quite worried about what the intentions of the newcomers might happen to be. They knew that the strangers had come from the hulking ship in the bay that had just arrived earlier that morning and their chief, Great-Big-Little-Panther, had warned them to stay away from the bay while it remained there because he had sensed a great evil within it. And now that they were getting a close look at two of its occupants, they had no doubt that their chief had been correct in his assumption.

The two strangers looked like grown men, both of whom were quite tall. One of them, the one that wore the weird white mask with the many holes in it, appeared to be especially muscular despite the gray coverall that he was wearing and he carried a large machete in one of his thick rotted-looking hands. The other one, the one that was wearing the red and green striped sweater and a tattered brown hat, had a build that was much more angular in appearance but then he also had long knife-like extensions attached to the fingers of his right hand and his skin looked terrible, as though he had been burned in a fire that he should not have survived; it actually looked so bad that both of the children sorely wished that he was wearing a mask as well.

The two strange men had caught the scent of campfires and thus had started heading in the direction that they perceived it was coming from. At one point, as they continued to get ever closer to the village, Tiger Lily and Hard-To-Hit stopped for a few moments and let the strangers get far enough ahead of them that it would be safe for them to speak quietly to each other.

"What do you think we should do?" asked Hard-To-Hit in a calm manner even though he was filled with worry.

"I don't know, but this can't be good!" replied Tiger-Lily, not bothering to conceal her trepidation. "We need to warn Great-Big-Little-Panther somehow, before they reach the village!" she decided, creasing her brow with an urgent expression as she pondered the potentially dire situation at hand.

"Perhaps we should just keep following them for now and see if we can determine what their intentions are," suggested Hard-To-Hit. "Perhaps they are not as hostile as they appear to be," he added hopefully. "Besides, there are only two of them. Even if they are hostile, how much damage can two men do against a whole tribe?"

"Something tells me they aren't normal men," Tiger-Lily responded warily. "You know they came from that new ship, the 'Bestrifer', or whatever it's called. Don't forget what Great-Big-Little-Panther told us about that thing!" she warned her brother.

"I have not forgotten," Hard-To-Hit replied solemnly. "However, I still think it might be wiser for us to just keep following them for the time being so we can try to find out more about them before we decide to consider them as enemies. We must keep in mind that appearances are not everything."

"Ok, maybe you're right," Tiger Lily conceded. "Let's hurry and catch back up to them before they get too far ahead of us!"

And with that, the two Indian children started creeping forwards again. They halted their advance when the two strange men stopped and stood at the edge of the brush on the outskirts of the Indian Village, and they watched them silently as they peered into the clearing just ahead. Up until this point, neither one of the strange men had spoken since the Indian children had begun trailing them, but then one of them finally did.

"Well...lookie here," Freddy said to Jason with a sneer. "Looks like...um...Injuns? Ha! That's kind of strange."

Jason only grunted as a reply, since he did not possess the ability to verbally communicate otherwise.

"Hmm...I wonder what Captain Sturmsi would make of this," Freddy said as he stroked his chin with the blade of his right index finger in a thoughtful manner. "You know, if it weren't for her..." he paused for a moment to let out a hiss of displeasure before continuing, "...annoying restrictions, I know exactly what I would do."

Jason grunted again in a way that conveyed his agreement with that particular statement.

"Ah well, maybe someday we'll be free again," Freddy replied with a tinge of sadness in his garbled voice. "But for now we have to do what she wants." Then he let out a mournful sigh. "Let's go back to the boat. I'll tell her about our little discovery when she comes back. In the meantime, we can just chill."

And with that, both Freddy and Jason turned around and began to make their way back through the woods towards the beach whence they'd come.

As soon as they were out of sight, Tiger-Lily and Hard-To-Hit rushed out of the bushes and ran straight towards the teepee of Chief-Great-Big-Little-Panther so that they could tell him about what they'd seen and heard right away.

- - - - - -

Once she had regained the shore at the Mermaids' Lagoon, Sturmsi lumbered out of the water, still dragging the dead mermaid with her. Then she halted herself on the beach as she shifted back into her human-looking form. After the claws of her hands had retracted, the corpse that had still been impaled by them flopped lifelessly onto the sand next to one of her booted feet. She took a step away from it and looked down upon it for a moment, wrinkling her nose in disgust. Then she bent down towards it and reached for the thing's stringy blonde hair, which she grasped in her pale bony hand, and then she straightened herself and began to drag the corpse again as she vacated the lagoon to head back the way she'd come.

She continued to make her way towards her motorboat that was beached on the shore not too far ahead as she squinted at the two other forms that where also approaching it from the opposite side. It was Freddy and Jason. The two men-things reached the location of the boat well before the woman-thing did, and then they stood next to it idly as they watched their captain approaching with whatever it was that she was dragging behind her.

As soon she got close enough to be within normal speaking distance, Sturmsi halted her advance. "Check this out," she told her crewmen as she tossed forth her burden nonchalantly onto the ground before them so that they could get a good look at it. It had landed face down in the sand, though.

Freddy went up to it and shoved it with one of his heavy oil-stained boots just hard enough to flip it over. Then he snorted at it in a way that conveyed his amusement when he saw what it was. He could tell that it was a mermaid even though there was just a bloody stump where its tail should've been. He also noticed that its head lolled in a way that suggested its neck had been thoroughly broken. "Wow, Captain. That's, uh...very interesting. Mm-hmm. A mire-maid!" he remarked sarcastically as he gazed down at the mutilated corpse that laid on the ground. "Where'd you find it?" he asked then with curiosity in his gravelly voice as he looked over at Sturmsi.

"In the water, you retard," Sturmsi snapped in a mocking tone. "In the lagoon just around the bend behind me," she added flatly as she flicked her head in the direction whence she'd come. "I was just standing beside the water and it came right up to me. It sang some stupid song and then it grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into the water. I wasn't expecting that so I didn't do anything at first. It took me down to the bottom of the lagoon. Then it got scared and tried to get away. So then I killed it."

Freddy chuckled. He almost wished that he could have been there to see it. As much as he resented her, he liked watching Sturmsi kill almost as much as he liked partaking in the act himself. He'd noticed in his long time spent with her that she tended to display a special kind of flare in her methods of murder that he rather enjoyed witnessing whenever he got the chance. "Well, I wish I could say we were as lucky as you were, Captain, to have been provoked in such a way," he told her. Much to Freddy's chagrin, Sturmsi did not allow any of her crewmen to kill wantonly and she would punish them quite severely if she ever caught them doing it; as a matter of protocol, they were only allowed to kill when they were provoked or if Sturmsi otherwise gave them permission to do so. And one had to be very careful when interpreting the rules of being provoked lest he would be made to regret his failure in doing so, assuming that he was lucky enough to be allowed to continue his existence afterwards because otherwise he wouldn't likely live long enough to regret it. "Oh, but we did locate something that you might find interesting," he added. "It looked like a village of Indians, teepees and all. Native Americans, I mean."

"Hmm," Sturmsi replied, looking a bit perplexed. "Teepees? Native Americans? On a tropical island in the middle of nowhere which also happens to harbor mermaids? Not to mention that old-timey pirate ship that's sitting in the bay. This seems kind of...funny. But then I suppose it's entirely possible that this strange island is in a place out of time. There's no telling what else we might find here." Then she stepped over the dead mermaid and leapt aboard the motorboat. "Come on, you maggot-eaten dickheads," she snarled, "let's get back to the ship. I want to have a word or two with Pennywise."

Freddy and Jason promptly complied with her and they pushed the boat back into the water before they both got into it as well. Then Freddy started the motor and manned the tiller as he guided the boat back towards the _Bestrafer_ while Sturmsi stood near the bow, facing the water ahead of them with a steely gaze, and she pondered the sheer weirdness of the place they were in as her ship loomed in the distance.

- - - - - -

A short time later, Tootles happened to be flying near the Mermaids' Lagoon when he spotted the strange object lying on the beach. He flew down to get a closer look at it and then he gagged when he saw what it was, which caused him to descend into the sand nearby as he continued retching helplessly at the sight of the bloody stump of its missing tail. He finally managed to compose himself and then he took to the air again, speeding towards the underground house that he shared with the rest of the Lost Boys as fast as he could so that he could tell the others about what he'd found.

A few minutes later, all of the Lost Boys, minus Peter (who was off gallivanting somewhere else with Wendy, both of her brothers, and Tinker Bell), were standing on the beach near the dead mermaid, just gawking at it in shock. They had never seen a dead mermaid before and the fact that it was missing its tail made the sight all the more shocking to them.

The first one to speak of it was Nibs. "Do you think maybe the croc got her?" he asked the rest of his cohorts.

"I think that's slightly impossible," replied Slightly. "The croc's never been fast enough to catch a mermaid. Besides, if it was the croc then she would've eaten her all up instead of just leaving her on the shore like this, don't you think?"

"Well, her tail's gone," Nibs informed him.

"Yeah, but still," replied Slightly in a slightly annoyed tone of voice. "The croc is more than slightly big and I seriously doubt if she was hungry enough to chase down a mermaid that just the tail would be enough to make her stop eating," he said quite matter-of-factly.

"But what else could it have been?" Nibs asked. "What else in Neverland would be able to do something like this?"

"Maybe it was a shark?" Curly ventured.

"Don't be stupid, Curly," Slightly snapped in a condescending manner. "The body is on the shore. If it was a shark then how did the body get out here?"

Curly was about to make a snappy retort, or at least one that he thought was snappy, when the boys were interrupted by a voice that was all-too-familiar to them.

"Board the cullies!" Captain Hook roared as he and a few of his men charged at the Lost Boys, who had been too engrossed in their discussion about the dead mermaid to notice the pirates sneaking up behind them on the sand of the beach. "Seize the whip-jacks, men, before they take to the sky!" he commanded with urgency as he thrust forth his left arm and pointed his finger in the direction of his intended quarries. Smee, Mullins, and Starkey rushed on ahead of him to comply, yelling obscenities at the children with their swords held high.

All of the Lost Boys managed to dart into air just in the nick of time, however, evading capture, except for poor slow Tootles, who was snagged quite rudely by Mullins. Tootles screamed and kicked as hard as he could but it was of no use as Mullins' grip was firm and strong, although the pirate did have to use both of his hands to keep the bucking whelp secured.

"Tootles!" Nibs cried with dismay when he saw this. "Let him go, you filthy pirate scum!" he demanded angrily as he drew his wooden sword and went to dive-bomb Mullins with it.

"Belay that, you gombean whippersnapper, or I'll be aeratin' you with Johnny Corkscrew!" Smee hollered as he stepped in just in time to slice the blade clean off of Nib's sword near the hilt. Then the old furry-faced Irishman jabbed his cutlass at the flying boy and managed to give him a nasty cut on the shoulder as Nibs retreated backwards into the air before he really got skewered. "Oi, you come back 'ere so's I can bust ya!" Smee called after him as he glared up at Nibs and shook his fist menacingly.

Nibs stayed where he was at a safe distance for the moment and looked down at Smee disparagingly while holding his free hand against his bleeding wound as the magical wooden sword in his other hand regenerated its missing blade.

"Nibs! Are you all right?" asked Curly with great concern as he flew closer to his injured friend. But he didn't realize that it was Nib's pride which most injured at the moment.

"I will be!" Nibs replied curtly as he gritted his teeth, not intending for it to come out that way. Then he sighed briskly to dispel some of his anger. "It's Tootles you should be worried about," he added more softly.

"We'll save him, don't worry!" Curly assured him. "And if we don't, then Peter will!"

Starkey moved to stand beside Mullins then and he held his rapier at the ready as he glared viciously at the lot of airborne children that hovered over him and his shipmates. "I say! Do come down here and fight us like men, you pathetic little ragamuffins!" he demanded in a pedantic tone.

Tootles continued to squeal as he tried in vain to free himself from Mullins' grasp.

"Cease your mindless mewling, you shore-loafing scamp, lest I trim your two-gallon stunsil down to a bare mast!" Hook commanded with a growl as he pointed the tip of his longsword at Tootles' neck, and that finally made the boy quite down and stop struggling, quite abruptly too. "Gentleman Starkey, kindly turn about and point your rapier at Master Tootles so that he might stay quiet whilst I investigate this thing which has so fascinated our young adversaries," he ordered his henchman. After Starkey had complied, Hook turned around and took a few steps towards the dead mermaid that was still lying upon the beach behind them. "Hmm. What cozening is here?" Hook wondered aloud with growing curiosity as he bent forward and gazed down upon it. "Bosun Smee!" he barked suddenly. "Get over here and take a look at this!"

Smee jumped at the command and came towards him as quickly as he could while walking backwards warily to keep his eyes affixed on the aloft boys until he'd reached his captain's side, then he sheathed his cutlass and turned around to look at the dead thing as ordered. Bending down on his haunches, he adjusted his spectacles. "Well now, I'll be flummoxed," he murmured thoughtfully as he stared at it and scratched his head for a moment in a confused manner, although the sight that he beheld did not exactly perturb him. Then his eyes lit up and he held his index finger before him as he made a realization. "Be lookin' like that'n'll not be asingin' any more blarney songs now, hehe! Someone's gone an' scuppered that banjaxed little sea-witch right proper they have, Capt'n Sir, I'm sure!" he said excitedly as he clasped his hands before him in glee.

"Aye, Bosun. I can see that. But who or what was it which might hath done the scuppering, do you suppose?" Hook asked absently as he straightened himself and stared at the ocean. It was more of a question to himself than it was to Smee, but he'd yet to come up with an answer on his own.

"Well now, I couldn't be sayin' that for sure, Capt'n, but mayhap it be one of her own kind what's done it," Smee replied. "Wouldn't surprise me at all now, as seein' how these 'ere mermaids tend ta be such the jealous lot as they are. Hell hath no fury, they do say."

"Even so, I've never heard of them being quite so vicious as this," Hook replied. "At least not to those of their own ilk. And not to the extent that it would take for one to mutilate another in such a cruel manner." Then he went to stand next to the mermaid's head and he prodded it gently with one of his booted feet, noticing how easily it lolled about despite the fact that rigormortis had already begun to set in. "Why, her neck has been completely fractured," he commented. Then he stepped towards the shortened tail section of the creature and got down on his haunches to make a closer inspection of the gaping wound at the end of it. "There are teeth marks in this flesh...and big ones they are too," he said. Naturally, the first thing that popped into his mind at this discovery was the infamous croc, the one with the clock in its belly, but then he quickly came to the same conclusions that the Lost Boys had just before the pirates had ambushed them. He also noticed that the markings indicated that the teeth were finely serrated, much like a shark's, and he knew that the crocodile of Neverland did not have serrated teeth. But, of course, since the body was on the shore it couldn't very likely have been a shark that had made the fatal attack, especially considering the way that the neck was broken. It was, indeed, quite perplexing.

Nibs listened intently to every word that Hook was saying. At one point, Slightly had whispered to him, saying that they should try again to free Tootles while Hook was distracted, but Nibs had told him to wait. He explained that he wanted to allow Hook to take a look at the dead mermaid and then listen to what he had to say about it in case that he might be able to figure out what had happened to her, because Nibs understood that the old pirate captain had a lot more experience with death than they did.

Mullins backed over towards the place where Hook and Smee currently stood while maintaining his hold on Tootles, and Starkey followed him in the same manner so as to keep the point of his rapier aimed at the boy's neck as the captain had instructed him without exposing his back to the rest of the Lost Boys, who were still hovering nearby and muttering quietly amongst themselves. Then Mullins looked over his shoulder to take a glance at the dead mermaid that lay upon the ground behind him as Starkey kept his eyes on their adversaries and Hook continued inspecting its blunted tail end from a closer perspective.

Hook looked up then and scowled when he saw that Mullins was beginning to open his mouth to say something, but the captain quickly cut him off with annoyed anticipation of his comment. "Wait, Mullins. Don't tell me," he said as he rolled his eyes. "You suspect that there is evil in this."

"Aye, Sir. That I do," Mullins replied with utter sincerity. "I guess that just goes without saying."

"Indeed, Mullins," Hook replied sarcastically. "You only say that every single time we happen to encounter something that is strange or otherwise unfamiliar to us, you worthless Jack Shalloo!" Hook spat at him scornfully as he rose up to his full height so that his head towered well above those of the other three men.

"Be that as it may, Sir, you have to admit that I'm usually right!" Mullins insisted defensively.

"Balderdash, Mullins!" Hook shouted angrily and his face began to turn red as he raised his claw arm and brandished his curved iron prosthesis at his insolent crewman in a very threatening manner, and then he took a step forward so that it twitched hatefully right in Mullins' haggard face. "I have to do NO...SUCH...THING! By GAR, you have some nerve! It just so happens that we are in a place where witchery is practically the norm and just because you happen to be so inclined to state the obvious at every turn does not mean that you shall be garnering any manner of respect for it! Now batten down your gob-box and belay your jerk-chin music, you stoop-shouldered, gull-necked galley-grouter, or on the soul of my perfectly mannered, dear departed mater, I _swear_ I shall CLEAVE you from stem to stern with this very HOOK and then I shall remove your rudder and place it in your crow-jack!!!"

Much of the color had drained from Mullins' face by the time that Hook had finally finished his tirade, but the Brooklyn brigand was nonetheless about to say something else that would very likely have gotten him severely injured, at the very least, by his raging captain if it hadn't been for the sudden and unexpected arrival of another party just then that dissolved the feud, or rather put it on hold for the moment before it could escalate any further.

It was Old Crooked Tail. "Uh, excuse me! Gentlemen?" she called after she'd poked her head up out of the water nearby, and she waved both her hands above her head to try and get their attention.

Hook was still so angry at Mullins, however, that he'd actually failed to hear her voice or otherwise notice her presence at all. But Starkey had heard her splash in the water behind them even before she'd said anything. "Uh, Captain? Begging your pardon, Sir, but I do believe that we have some company!" he tried to inform him.

"I realize that, you useless ma-nanny!" Hook spat at him. "We've only got five flibbertigibbeted tatterdemalions that have been floating about right above our heads for the past fifteen minutes and you actually think that I haven't noticed them? Are you _daft_??"

"But, no, Captain! In the water, Sir!" Starkey insisted with a doleful whimper as he pointed in the direction of the newest arrival on the scene.

Then Hook finally turned around and saw Crooked Tail, who stopped flailing her arms then and just waved at him slyly with one hand as she smiled at him in a way that conveyed the fact that she was quite tickled by the pirate captain's demeanor rather than frightened by it.

"Madam Crooked Tail," Hook greeted her with a surprised look on his face as he turned away from his men and took a step closer to the water.

"Good afternoon, Captain Hook!" she replied cheerily, but then her smile faltered as she took another look at her dead sister's corpse and then she sighed as the feeling of sadness that the circumstances of the death had initially invoked returned to inundate her once again. "I hope you guys don't mind, but I've come to take the body of my dead sister back down to the Grotto so she can be given a proper funeral by her kinfolk," she informed the pirates as well as the Lost Boys who were listening.

"Not at all, Madam, not at all," Hook replied sincerely. "Smee! Be so kind as to move the body closer to the water so that Madam Crooked Tail can reach it," he ordered the bosun.

"Aye, Capt'n," Smee replied. He dutifully went to the corpse and grasped it under its arms with both of his hands, and then began to drag it as gently as he could while moving backwards towards the edge of the water where Crooked Tail was waiting patiently to receive it. "Here ya go, Ma'am," Smee said when he'd gotten the body close enough to the water that Crooked Tail could take a hold of it, and then he carefully relinquished it to her as she pulled it into the water beside her. Then Smee stood up, took his bandanna off, and held it against his chest for a moment as he respectfully bowed his head. "My condolences to ya, Ma'am, to be sure," he said before reapplying the bandanna, and then he turned and walked back across the sand to stand near Hook again.

"Thank you, Smee," Crooked Tail called after him with genuine gratitude, then she looked up as Hook spoke to her again.

"Madam, might you know how the death of your sister has come to pass?" the captain asked her curiously.

"Yes, I'm afraid I do. Her name was Ariela, by the way. And I actually saw it happen with my own eyes," she informed him somberly.

"Oh, I'm very sorry to hear that. But might you be willing to explain to us what transpired?" Hook asked hopefully. "If it's not too painful for you to recall, that is," he added charily.

"Oh, it's not a problem, Captain. I actually think this is something you all should hear," Crooked Tail said to the Lost Boys just as much as the pirates. "Listen carefully, please, if you will. I'm sure you're all well aware of the strange new ship that arrived in Kidd's Creek Bay this morning. The _Bestrafer_." All of the listeners nodded in doleful agreement and then Crooked Tail continued. "Well, I believe it was one of the...um...creatures from that vessel that took the life of young Ariela here. Although, just so you know, in all fairness she did kind of have it coming to her. I'm sure you're also well aware of the fact that some mermaids have a nasty little habit of trying to lure humans to their death just for the fun of it." Again, they all nodded in agreement. Crooked Tail chuckled. "Well," she continued, "I believe that's what this little lassy was trying to do to a particular individual that hails from that butt-ugly ship, one which apparently happens to be a shapeshifter of some sort. It appeared to be a human female at first, an adult one, and when I saw her being dragged into the depths of the lagoon by this here mermaid I was going to try and give her a hand. The woman I mean, or the thing that I thought was a woman; not the mermaid, you understand?" Everyone nodded once again. "I was going to, that is, until I saw the transformation take place." Then Crooked Tail paused for a few moments as she tried to figure out the best way to explain what it was that the being had transformed into.

"Transformation?" Hook questioned thoughtfully as he prodded Crooked Tail to continue her rather fascinating tale.

"Yeah," Crooked Tail said, finally continuing. "The thing that I, and apparently Ariela as well, had thought was a human woman just up and turned into something quite different altogether, all of a sudden too. That's when I stopped in my tracks and decided to keep my distance, but I stayed nearby so I could see what would happen next. Unfortunately, Ariela didn't notice the change until it was too late because she'd just been dragging the creature along behind her as she barreled on through the water, without a care in the world. Or, hell, for all I know it could've already been too late the very moment she laid eyes on the wretched thing, even before it bothered to change shape. The transformation certainly didn't take very long, less than a minute for sure."

"I see, but what exactly did it, or she, rather, change into?" Hook pressed.

"Keep your britches on, Captain, I'm getting to that," Crooked Tail replied. "It's kind of hard to explain. At first glance it looked a hell of a lot like the old croc we're all too familiar with already." She smiled briefly when she saw Captain Hook shudder at this and she noted that he was the only one in the entire group who did. "But that wouldn't be an accurate description, per se. It was quite different. It had an almost humanoid shape to it, which I suppose makes sense since it did happen to be a humanoid shortly beforehand. The way its hind legs where shaped it looked like it would be able to walk upright on land and its whole body was covered with spines. It also had some nasty looking claws, a huge mouthful of triangular teeth, and a big fat tail. And as scary as all that may sound, the description doesn't quite do it justice. I can't explain exactly why it seemed so terrible to me, but it really was the most god-awful thing I've ever seen before. And I've seen a lot of crap, let me tell you. Maybe it was a feeling it was giving off somehow, I don't know. Anyways, it was weird, and it's like the thing deliberately waited until Ariela finally stopped swimming and turned around only to be completely shell-shocked by what she saw. It seemed to enjoy that quite a bit, I noticed. Don't ask me how I know that either, it's just a feeling I got. Ariela, of course, screamed like the dickens and tried to swim away but that's when the thing snatched her by the tail with its claws and...well...it pulled her tail into its mouth and bit the end of it right off with one clean snap. Naturally, there was a lot of blood going every which way after that, and then it yanked her into the mess so I couldn't see her anymore. A few moments later she stopped screaming. After that, the thing dragged her dead body with it as it swam back up to the surface. That's when I made for the Grotto to tell the other mermaids about what I'd seen. So, basically, the moral of the story is...don't mess with that thing!"

"Wow - holy cow - whoa - yikes," some of the Lost Boys muttered to themselves all at the same time.

The pirates stood silently, having nothing further to say at that point.

"Alrighty then, it's been fun, gents, but I better be getting ol' Ariela back down to the Grotto before she starts to stink!" Crooked Tail said lightheartedly.

"Just one moment, if you please, Madam Crooked Tail," Hook requested hastily but politely when he was struck with an unanswered question that he felt was important to ask. "I have one more thing that I'd like to ask you. This creature, before it transformed, could you please try to describe its initial appearance before the change took place?"

"Well, like I said," Crooked Tail replied, "it looked like an adult human female. Somewhere in her 30's or 40's I'd wager, if she was actually human, of course, but I doubt that means much considering the fact that she's not really human at all. She had really short hair, dark colored. She was a bit husky, big-boned maybe, and she looked kind of pallid. And her clothing was mostly grayish in color and she wore trousers rather than a skirt. That's about all I can remember, Captain."

"Very well," Hook replied. "Thank you for providing us with this valuable information, Madam Crooked Tail. I wish you well and I do hope that the funeral for Mistress Ariela goes as smoothly as can be expected."

Crooked Tail laughed merrily. "Oh, it'll go just as smooth as a new baby's bottom! Believe me, all the other mermaids will pretend to be sad and try to look all cutsie while they're blotting away their crocodile tears, but every one of them will know the truth: it just means there's one less rival for them to contend with! As for me, I never cared much for Ariela either, I have to admit that. But I'll be there to see her remains buried, and I'll be the only one there with an honest look on my face. May Poseidon rest her soul. Well, see ya'll later!" And with that, Crooked Tail put one of her arms around Ariela's waist and pulled her under the water as she dove down to her chariot that was waiting below the surface.

Then, all of a sudden, "AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!" Mullins screamed at the top of his lungs as Tootles bit the crap out of his thumb. Then Tootles kicked him right in the balls as hard as he could with the back of his shoe, which caused Mullins say, "AAARRRGGGHHH!!!" and release the panda-hat boy so that he could use both of his hands to cup the newly offended area. He also subsequently fell to his knees as he did this.

Tootles triumphantly joined the other Lost Boys in the air safely above the pirates as Nibs, Curly, the Twins, and even Slightly cheered for him and laughed heartily at the expense of Mullins.

Needless to say, Captain Hook was not pleased. "Gall and brimstone!!" he wailed. "I swear it on Edward Teach's black beard, I will SLICE you land-lubbing cheese-crawlers starboard to larboard, stem to stern, and tip to toe!! I'll RIP you all keel, belly, mast, top, and pole, you rotten lot of scrubby little darby-rolling dandy-masters!!!" he shouted into the sky as he furiously pistoned his fist and hook over his head, which only caused the Lost Boys to laugh even harder.

Then, one by one, with Nibs in the lead, the Lost Boys all turned and flew way up into the sky as they began to make their way back towards the underground house, leaving the pirates behind to fume on the beach below them.

"Compose yourself, Mr. Mullins!" Hook demanded huffily with a growling bark as he glared at the still incapacitated pirate with derision. "We're heading back to the ship!" And with that, the captain began to lead his men back in the direction of their longboat.

Quite eager to get back aboard the _Jolly Roger_, Mullins got up from the ground as quickly as he could, still wincing with pain, and followed his shipmates.

* * * * * *


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Later on that same day, in the late afternoon, Billy Jukes was tinkering down in his workshop below deck aboard the _Jolly Roger_. He was using an old set of blacksmith's hammer and tongs to methodically sculpt a piece of crudely shaped metal upon the pockmarked anvil by the heated forge when there was a sudden knock on the wooden slat just outside the open entryway of the dimly lit compartment. His shoulders tensed up as the sound jolted him out of his daydreams and he turned his head sharply to see who'd made it, but then he relaxed when he saw that it was Robert Mullins. "How goes it, matey?" Billy asked his older friend amiably as he paused his work to greet him and, after carefully setting down his utensils, he used the back of one of his lean forearms to wipe away some of the glistening beads of sweat from the chocolate-colored skin of his brow that had accumulated there while he'd been dutifully plugging away for hours in front of the furnace-like heat of the embers that smoldered before him.

"Not well, Billy boy, not well at all," Mullins responded sullenly as he entered the room slowly with a haggard expression clinging to his abnormally pale face like a sodden rag. Although the physical pain of the debacle that he'd experienced earlier had subsided, the emotional trauma had not. Furthermore, he was even more worried about the bad omen they'd encountered while ashore and he could not seem to get the image of the mutilated corpse of the dead mermaid out of his mind. It's not the he cared anything for the mermaids, he actually abhorred them quite a bit, and under normal circumstances the sight of a dead one would actually have pleased him more than anything else. But this was not a normal circumstance at all, even considering the types of foul witchery that were already quite prevalent in Neverland. No, this was different. He could feel it in his bones like a nagging arthritis that was continually trying to warn him about a coming of bad weather that he was already well aware of. As far as he was concerned, there was a new type of evil afoot in their midst and it filled him with an unusual sense of foreboding that made him feel even more queasy than his dreadful landsickness, especially when he looked directly at its source, which was sitting right across the bay from their own ship. And the captain's flippant attitude about it only caused Mullins to feel all the more uneasy about the situation. Thus he'd decided to come below deck to get away from the sight of it for at least a little while because so long as he was topside, he could not seem to peel his eyes way from it, as much as he sorely wanted to. He also wanted to see if Billy could maybe cheer him up a little bit. The boy did tend to have a knack for doing that as he recalled.

Billy's jovial expression changed abruptly to one of concern when he noticed how bad Mullins happened to look just then. "Damn, Mullins, what's wrong?" he asked, genuinely perturbed by the man's apparent state of distress. "Surely you can't still be hurtin' from that little nudge Tootles gave ya!" he chided playfully, having already heard all about what had transpired earlier from the other pirates who'd been there.

"Naw, it ain't that," Mullins growled as he carefully sat down upon a barrel a few feet way from Billy and the little wince that he was unable to suppress as he did so caused Billy to smile shrewdly at him for a moment before the boy's expression changed back to a more serious one.

Billy decided that his friend was more important than his work at the moment and so he decided to sit down for a spell as he took a seat across from Mullins and carefully looked at the rugged face of the other pirate. He could see that Mullins was really messed up about something and that bothered him quite a bit. He knew that the American did tend to get a little too excited at times, especially when it came to dealing with things of the supernatural because he was very sensitive to that, but this was different somehow. For as long as they'd been stuck in Neverland, Mullins had managed to get used to much of the strange happenings that went on around the cursed place, at least somewhat, but right now he looked as though he was being severely tortured by something. "Ok, talk to me, cully," Billy said as he leaned forward studiously, placing his hands upon his taut thighs as he stared at Mullins intently to indicate that he was ready to listen to whatever he had to say. "What's going on?"

Mullins shook his head as if to clear his mind and then clasped a hand to his brow as he set the elbow of the same arm down upon his knee for support and he rested that way with his eyes shut for a moment or two. He really didn't even want to talk about it but he also felt that he needed to, so he continued to sit like that as he tried to think of the right words to say that would convey his feelings accurately without sounding like a flake. Then he used the same hand to rub his face before raising his head enough to rest his chin upon the knuckles so that he could stare blankly at the wall behind Billy.

Billy saw that Mullins was having some difficulty with beginning to confide in him whatever his problem was so he decided to give him a gentle prod. He knew Mullins well enough that he already had a good idea of what was bothering him anyway. "I know," he said. "It's that ship. And the dead mermaid. And what Crooked Tail said about it. Is that what's got you so worked up?" he asked patiently, even though he already knew the answer was yes. He realized that Mullins needed to talk to someone in order to get things off his chest, and Billy also knew that he was the only one on the ship who was willing to be there for him in this manner.

"Aye," Mullins responded gruffly. "I guess that just goes without saying," he echoed sarcastically when he recalled what the captain had said to him earlier, and that memory caused the feeling of resentment he'd felt then to resurge inside him again. He despised Hook, especially when the old man refused to take him seriously and subsequently put the crew in what he felt was unnecessary danger because of the one-handed bastard's foolhardy pride. Although Mullins could be a bit of a coward at times, he usually tended to display a commendable amount of bravery when dealing with other men, but not when it came to demons. That was a different kettle of fish altogether. And Hook's nonchalant attitude towards them angered Mullins quite a bit, especially when his knowledgeable warnings about them went unheeded by the pompous British pirate captain that the Brooklyn-born brigand was forced to serve. "I just got a really bad feelin' about all this, Billy, and it's hard for me to explain it exactly. I know what yer thinkin', but it's even worse than usual. Believe me," he said insistently with a hopeful expression that conveyed his need to be listened to by at least someone. "And the capt'n's about to be gettin' on my last nerve now, I tell ya," he added quietly with a scowl as Hook's raging visage implanted itself in his mind yet again.

"I do believe you, matey. And I know what you're sayin'," Billy responded sincerely. He understood that Mullins' sixth sense was not something to be scoffed at and he was the only other pirate on board the ship who thought that way. "Try not to worry about it too much, though. Things always manage to work out somehow," he assured. "Besides, Hook will get what's coming to him someday," he added with a shrewd sneer.

That thought actually did cheer Mullins up quite a bit just then. He knew that Billy was right, too, and he returned the boy's smile with a sly sneer of his own. "Aye, that he will!" Mullins agreed heartily. "In a way I hope I'll get to be there to see it too. So long as I gots a good escape route, mind you," he added warily.

Billy chuckled as a new thought struck him and he leaned over to whisper in a secretive manner as he shared it with Mullins. "And knowin' the captain as we do, it'll take a demon to give him what he deserves."

Mullins blinked a couple of times at this statement with a surprised look as he considered the weight of it and then his eyes widened at the epiphany that just had been made. Billy did have a point there, actually, now that he thought about it. "Aye," he responded with a distant look in his eyes. "You're probably right about that too," he openly conceded then, nodding his head in approval. As much as he was reluctant to admit it, he thought now that perhaps some good might happen to come out of the fiasco that he sensed was impending after all, and that idea afforded him some much-needed hope to boost his downtrodden spirits in the meantime. He stood up then and went over to Billy and clasped the young pirate's shoulder in a friendly manner. "Thanks, Billy. I feel a bit better now that ya opened my eyes to somethin' I wouldn'ta considered on my own," he said with genuine gratitude as he looked down at the young Gypsy who seemed to possess some wisdom beyond his years. "Now I best be gettin' some sleep before I gotta take the nightwatch," he added ruefully, as that was something he was not looking forward to. Somehow, looking upon the _Bestrafer_ in the moonlight was even worse to him than seeing it in broad daylight and he shuddered at the thought. Then he turned to leave the compartment and make his way into the fo'c'sle so that he could retire to his hammock and get whatever rest that he might be able to.

"Take it easy, Mullins," Billy called after his colleague as the older pirate vacated the room. Mullins raised his hand beside his head and briefly waved goodbye without turning around just before he disappeared around the corner of the doorway. Afterwards, Billy let out a heavy sigh as he got back up and promptly returned to his tireless work at the forge. He was actually glad that Mullins would be on the nightwatch again because he was expecting his friend Slightly to come and pay him a visit and Billy felt like he had some important things to discuss with the lad. And their meeting would be a lot safer with Mullins on the lookout since he already knew about the boys' friendship and didn't seem to overly disapprove of it as all the other men most certainly would, especially the captain. Billy fully understood that if Hook ever found out about it, he would be one dead dog. He gulped with some trepidation for a moment when he actually thought about what Hook would do to him for consorting with a Lost Boy, which was something the captain would no doubt consider an act of treason worthy of capital punishment. But he pushed that thought out of his mind and turned to more pleasant ones as he got back into the soothing rhythm of his hammering. As much as he feared Hook along with the rest of the crew, Billy Jukes simply refused to allow the overbearing captain to completely rule his life, and the secret friendship that he enjoyed with Slightly gave the young pirate a much-needed outlet from the constriction that was imposed by Hook's overly oppressive style of command.

- - - - - -

About an hour later, Captain Hook was eyeing the _Bestrafer_ intensely from the main deck of the _Jolly Roger_ as he stood near the starboard bulwark. A mechanized longboat of some sort was being deployed from the beastly mothership and then he watched it with much interest as it made its way noisily to the shore. Smee came over to him then and looked up at him with a curious expression.

"Oi, now what be that banjaxed noise, do ye think, Capt'n Sir?" the bosun asked quizzically.

"It's an _engine_, Smee," Hook growled in response without taking his eyes off the swiftly moving craft in the distance. "Some kind of blasted _engine_. It seems as though our new neighbors are _quite_ fond of them," he added in a rather annoyed tone. "Arm the men, Bosun, and man the longboat!" he barked suddenly. "We are going ashore!"

"Oh, aye, Sir! Goin' ashore it is, Sir!" Smee replied obsequiously and then he went to carry out the order and muster the men for the task.

A short time later, Hook was making his way toward the shore of Neverland with most of his men rowing the longboat there. The party included Smee, who manned the tiller, as well as Starkey, Mason, Jukes, and Cookson, who manned the oars while the captain stood at the bow, scanning the shoreline ahead of them with his spyglass. Hook had decided to leave Mullins behind this time so that he wouldn't have to listen to his incessant blatherings about devilry during this particular mission. He was already too aware of the fact that there indeed was evil in the black hearts of the strange newcomers but he nonetheless wanted to investigate the matter for himself and he wanted to do so without being constantly reminded of the potential danger that they obviously faced as a result. "Row, you dogs! Put your backs into it!" he commanded impatiently in order to speed up their progress.

Once they'd reached the shore and had moored their longboat at the beach, Hook began to lead his men in the direction where the adversaries' boat was parked a ways down the shoreline from where the pirates had landed. When they got to it there was no one else nearby so far as they could tell, but they did see the tracks that its owners had left behind, which lead into the forest. They also noticed that there were three different sets of them, two of which were quite large, almost the same size as Hook's, and another that was quite a bit smaller; and the tread-marks of the boots that had left them all were quite strange looking. They were nothing quite like any soles that any of the pirates had ever seen before and they all became somewhat uneasy at this discovery. Nonetheless, Hook forced his men to continue onwards with him as they followed the odd trail into the woods.

At some point while the pirates were still traversing through the brush to follow the trail that was left by the newcomers, Hook realized that they were headed in the direction of the Indian Village. He wondered with growing curiosity as to what they wanted here and what they might do in this place. Then he stopped suddenly, coming to an abrupt halt as he heard quiet voices coming from somewhere up ahead, and he thrust both of his arms out to his sides to signal the men behind him to stop moving as well. And they all did except for Smee, who'd been following Hook so closely that he failed to notice him stop in time and thus the bosun crashed right into the captain's backside and then bounced right off of it, subsequently falling backwards onto the ground upon which he landed directly on his ass with an "_oomph_", also muttering a few surprised expletives as he went down.

"Be _quiet_, you _clabber-dungeon lummox_!" Hook demanded snappily in as much of a hushed tone as he could manage while still sounding plenty threatening as he looked down over his shoulder at the klutz that was sitting on the ground near his heels.

"A-Aye, Sir," Smee whimpered pathetically as he carefully made it back to his feet and then he cringed up at the scowling captain with his hands drawn together in front of him in a pleading gesture that begged for mercy.

Then Hook addressed the men in general in a stern way as he continued to keep his voice down. "All of you stay quiet! They're just up ahead!" And with that he began to creep forward, trying to make as little noise as possible as he went. The rest of the men, Smee included, did their best to mimic their captain's stealth as they followed him dutifully. However, despite his immensely superior size, Hook was quite a lot stealthier than any of his crewmen and a short time later he wisely signaled for them to stop moving as he continued onwards alone. He didn't have far to go, however, in order to gain a position from which he could spy the members of the other group visually, and there he crouched on his haunches as he peered through the brush at them while his men stayed back at a safer distance, remaining silent as they awaited further instruction and they patiently watched their captain make his initial evaluation of the newcomers.

Much to Hook's relief, the strange looking trio ahead of him didn't appear to notice his presence and he remained content to spy on them secretly for several moments. They stood just at the edge of the clearing that led directly into the Indian Village and they appeared to be making a visual inspection of it in much the same manner as Hook was currently doing to them. Two of them, a man and a woman, were speaking very quietly to one another while another man stood silently nearby and although Hook couldn't tell what exactly was being said, especially since it sounded like they were conversing in a language that he didn't actually know (German he surmised, by the sound of it), he could easily tell by the body language that was being displayed amongst them who was in charge of the small group and he was quite shocked to see that it was the lone female of the party. The way that she looked at the two much larger male figures in her presence indicated that she held no fear of them whatsoever and very little, if any, respect for them to boot, despite their exceptionally formidable appearances as compared with her own. This puzzled Hook quite a bit until he realized that the female in question bore a striking resemblance to the one that Old Crooked Tail had described to him earlier that day. He also subsequently recalled the story that the old mermaid had told about the being's ability to change forms and become something that resembled a demonic crocodile, the mere thought of which sent quite a chill down Hook's ample and normally imperturbable spine. And so he then understood the reason for the docile mannerisms that were put forth by the two strange men-things as they stood before such a terrible sort of creature even though he had yet to actually see the transformation take place for himself.

Suddenly, the woman-thing turned her head in Hook's direction and although he felt as though he was still quite well hidden it appeared that she was looking directly at him nonetheless. She suddenly and brusquely pushed her way between the two men-things that were standing near her and she began to make her way directly towards Hook's very location. He stood to his feet then and motioned for his men to come to him quickly, which they did without bothering to mask the sound of their approach. Hook realized that his cover had already been blown somehow so he strode forth out of the brush to meet the newcomers face-to-face rather than trying to retreat from them like a coward and his men flanked him defensively. Hook halted his advance as the woman-thing did the same with little more than ten feet between them and then they both stood still as they regarded each other silently for a few moments thereafter. Hook noticed with some mounting trepidation that her eyes seemed to hold some kind of odd light within them as she looked at him in a suspicious manner but he was still the one to boldly break the silence anyway.

"Ahoy, and good afternoon, Madam!" he called to her jovially. "I am Captain James Hook of the noble brig, the _Jolly Roger_," he said politely as he courteously removed his hat and placed it against his chest, giving the woman-thing before him a gentlemanly bow that completely belied the wisp of uneasiness that fluttered within him. "And who might you be?" he asked quizzically as he straightened his posture and firmly reapplied the hat to his head. Then he crossed his arms in front of his massive chest as he awaited the response of the one whom he'd addressed.

"What's it to you?" she replied harshly in her unexpectedly deep and somewhat raspy voice as she continued to stare stoically at the big man who stood so brazenly in front of her. She wasn't quite sure what to make of him just yet.

Hook was rather annoyed by the lack of courtesy that the insolent wench was showing him regardless of whatever her true nature so happened to be. He purposefully blinked his eyes a few times in order to maintain his composure and then he cleared his throat brusquely before speaking again. "I am simply curious. You may have noticed my ship that is moored in the bay not so far from the vessel whence you came. It appears as though we are neighbors for the time being."

"Aye," she replied flatly. "I have indeed noticed your ship," she added in a rather shrewd tone and a sly smile crept onto her face that implied she knew a lot more about it than she actually should, which caused Hook to look at her even more suspiciously than he had before as he squinted one of his eyes. "I am Captain Sturmsirene of the prison-hulk, der _Bestrafer_, if you must know," she told him then as her two cronies stepped forward to flank her on both sides, as if on cue. "You may refer to me as Captain Sturmsi instead, though, if you prefer," she added nonchalantly as she crossed her own arms over her bosom in a commanding posture.

Hook was taken aback by this statement. "You are the captain of that...ship?" he asked incredulously with a surprised expression. He had heard of female pirates before but never a female captain. And the fact that she was actually a demon of some kind failed to dissuade him from this judgment. The fact that her ship was so large and ugly in appearance also added to his confusion about this revelation. It just didn't make sense to him. She did look rather tough for a woman but she was still a woman nonetheless, at least in his mind at the moment anyway. And even though he had noticed the commanding presence that she seemed to possess over the two underlings that apparently followed her at the moment, he'd figured that she was probably just a bosun on a scouting mission, but he'd certainly not considered the possibility that she was actually captain of the whole damned ship. "Well...that's, um...quite a surprise," he added hastily with reluctant acknowledgement of her station so that the lady wouldn't be compelled to repeat herself, but he was unconcerned about whether the comment offended her or not.

"What do you mean by that?" Sturmsi prodded as she cocked her head in a curious manner. She could already see where this was going and she was interested in finding out just how far this Captain Hook fellow was going to push her. On the surface he appeared to be just another pompous, self-righteous asshole that was a little too used to getting his way. But on the other hand, she also noticed something quite different about him that rather intrigued her, although she couldn't place her finger on exactly what it was, which of course only caused her to become even more intrigued by it. So she stared at Hook with growing curiosity as she awaited his response.

"It's just that...you see...you just don't appear quite the type that I expected to be...the captain of that particular manner of vessel," Hook tried to explain without being too rude about it. "I do hope that you understand," he added in a tone that sounded just a bit patronizing even if he didn't really mean it to.

"Oh, I understand," Sturmsi said calmly, even though she was getting angrier by the second, and then she placed her hands upon her hips and glared at Hook sternly. "It's because I'm a female, right?" she questioned in a daring tone. She was not about to put up with being disrespected, not by anyone, and especially not in front of her men. She had a hard enough time keeping them on their leashes as it was and she didn't need them to be getting the idea that she was going soft.

"Well, to be quite honest...yes, I'm afraid so," Hook responded sincerely. It's not that he was trying to offend her on purpose, it's just that he really did have a hard time accepting the idea that he would need to address this Sturmsi lady in the same sort of manner as he would address any other ship's captain for as long as they continued to converse with one another, whether she turned out to be a friend or a foe.

Sturmsi chuckled. "Well, let me just inform you that I'm not exactly what your kind would consider a proper lady," she told him flatly and, with that, she suddenly began to mutate into the same hideous creature that had killed Ariela the mermaid earlier that day, which caused Freddy and Jason to take several steps away from her in order to give her a wider birth so that they wouldn't be touched by her bristling form. Once the transformation was complete, she gave Hook her trademark leer in order to invoke and even greater reaction from him.

It caused Hook to take a few steps back along with his own men and he let out a growl that conveyed his disgust as he did so. Crooked Tail had been right, he thought. Her description had not done the creature justice. Now that he was finally getting a look at it for himself, he could fully understand what she'd meant by that. Even he, with his exceptionally extensive vocabulary, could not think of any words to really describe how truly dreadful it was. The fact that it did also share a few physical traits with the crocodile that he hated so much only added to his new state of aversion.

Sturmsi didn't say anything else for the time being. She was too busy enjoying the look of total revulsion that was etched upon Hook's face as well as the thick cloud of fear that was emanating from his underlings. But then she noticed with some dismay how quickly Hook regained his composure and replaced his expression of shock with one that conveyed aggression rather than submission.

"I don't know what in the Devil you are," Hook spat slowly as he balled his hand up into a fist at his side and raised his iron claw before him, "but do you dare to trifle with James Hook? The only pirate whom Barbecue feared!" he added as he placed his fist and hook upon his hips and glared up at Sturmsi with a hateful expression, his fear rapidly being replaced by growing anger. "Away with you, you loathsome lizard!" he commanded boldly as he gestured at her with his hand in a shooing manner while the rest of his men stood cowering behind him. "Or by Lord Admiral Nelson's dead eye, I'll have Long Tom, the mighty cannon, disintegrate your saurian face right along with that confounding garbage scow you call your ship!"

Sturmsi was a bit taken aback by the brazen attitude that Hook was displaying before her. She emitted a low growl that conveyed her mounting displeasure at him and along with that she began to seethe something else that couldn't quite be explained. It couldn't be seen or smelt or tasted, but it could be felt in the bones of all the pirates and it seemed quite oppressive to them. Even Hook was affected by it and as a result his claw wavered slightly as he raised it before him defensively.

"Would that I could blast you back to the Hell whence you came!" he shouted at Sturmsi in a furious tone that completely belied the uneasiness he felt in his spirit. He did not care for the feeling that she was giving off one bit but rather than allowing the fear overtake him he chose to respond with anger instead.

Sturmsi actually felt quite perturbed by this tenacious response and subsequently she'd decided to go ahead and kill Hook and his entire crew just then, out of nothing more than pure spite, and afterwards she would probably have also destroyed his ship just for the hell of it, but at that same moment she happened to noticed something else which distracted her attention away from this task. It was a poorly suppressed giggling that was coming out of Freddy.

Freddy knew better. He really did. But he just couldn't help it. It had been such a long time since he'd seen someone with enough balls to talk to Sturmsi like that and it really tickled him to see it now, especially since the man in question was so blatantly ignorant that he didn't even know his own ass from third base. He also understood the fact that she was going to smash the piss out of the guy for it too and then she would probably allow himself and Jason to take care of the rest of the guy's crew, and the anticipation that this idea caused to well up inside of him only spurred his evil laughter to come out even more. He realized too late, however, that it had caused him to inadvertently draw Sturmsi's irate attention onto himself instead. "Um...oops," he said when he noticed this and his laughter finally died as he tried to become serious again but he couldn't quite get the remaining smirk to leave his charred face no matter how hard he tried to make it go away.

Sturmsi snarled wickedly at Freddy for his insolent behavior and snapped her jaws at him angrily. Under normal circumstances, she probably wouldn't have bothered to pay any attention to it, but this was not a normal circumstance. This Hook fellow had really gotten under her skin for some strange reason and so she was just a little more touchy than usual at the moment. There was also the fact that Freddy had been getting on her nerves a lot lately as well, and that didn't help the situation. She suddenly realized that she'd had quite enough of him, actually, and so she decided to dispatch him right proper, once and for all, something which she probably should've already done a long time ago. She made a swipe at him with her talons to try and snatch him into her mouth but he managed to dodge the attack with unexpected agility, which only made her even angrier and she let out a gut-wrenching roar as she bent over and placed her hands upon the ground so that her snout would be more even with Freddy's midsection and so that she could lunge more quickly at him as well.

Freddy backpedaled away from Sturmsi in a defensive manner as she lumbered towards him briskly on all fours with an serpentine motion in her gate and her tail lashed about behind her as she went, splintering a few of the surrounding trees that happened to be nearby. He was filled with much trepidation although it was thoroughly belied by the evil sneer that was etched upon his craggily deformed face. She now looked much as she did when she was just "playing around" as she often did but Freddy instinctively knew that, unfortunately for him, this did not happen to be one of those times. She was thoroughly peeved and she was actually going to kill him for real this time. She let out a horribly grating roar as she stood menacingly on her rear set of haunches again and continued to advance with her upper talons held before her at the ready. Then her roar gradually subsided into a thick steam-like hiss as she loomed over Freddy with an electrical-looking spark dancing haphazardly in her otherwise blank eyes.

Hook and his men continued to stand by curiously as they watched the unexpected event unfolding before them. Hook was rather amused by the situation, actually, and so he decided to stand his ground for the time being so that he could see what would happen.

Freddy realized that there was no use in trying to run away so he stopped retreating and he held his blade-laden hand up in front of him in a way that was meant to be non-threatening. Sturmsi stood before him and emitted a low almost-mechanical rattling sound from her gaping maw as she prepared to devour him and thus terminate his existence forever. He knew well enough that her gullet lead directly into Oblivion itself, a place of complete nonexistence whence there was no chance of returning. As many times as he had been killed already only to come back again and again, he knew that this was the very of the line, and a very dead end it was indeed. Sturmsi was akin to what the ancient Egyptians had once referred to as Sobek, The Eater of Souls. And Freddy Krueger did not want his soul to be eaten despite the fact that his current state of existence on der _Bestrafer_ was not exactly one that he particularly enjoyed.

Although he had gotten to kill many times since his induction as a member of Sturmsi's damnable crew, Freddy had not gotten to kill a single child since that fateful day, which was ages ago, and that pained him quite a lot. The captain had tried to teach him the virtues of torturing and killing only those who were more deserving of it as well as those who presented more of a challenge to him instead, and Freddy had even tried his best to learn this technique if only to alleviate at least some of his own suffering that was induced by the cruel deprivation that was forced upon him, but in the end it just wasn't enough. He was what he was and he would never be able to change, not at his core anyway. And nor did he actually want to. Nonetheless, he was still bound and determined to hang on for as long as he could regardless because you never know what opportunities might be around the corner. And so he tried desperately to think of some way, any way, to placate her; he had to come up with something quick to say or do that might flip her switch and cause Sturmsi's volatile mood to shift to a less unpleasant one before he was completely annihilated for good.

Freddy focused his eyes on the hand that he was holding up in on front of his face and an idea struck him just as Sturmsi was widening her jaws over his head to bite down on him. He suddenly took a big step back and made a fist of his raised hand (the same one with the blades on it) and he positioned it so that the crevice between his thumb and index finger was facing towards Sturmsi. Then he proceeded to wiggle the thumb up and down so that the crevice became like a mouth as he said the words, "Murdering children." Except he deliberately pronounced it in a strange way so that it sounded more like "muwdewing chiwdwen" with his voice cracking in the process. And he performed this strange act several times in a row as he looked up at Sturmsi with a completely stoic expression.

Sturmsi pulled her head back abruptly and snapped her mouth closed when she beheld this odd display and then she just blinked at Freddy and looked at him blankly as though she was looking at someone who was totally high on crack. Then some very strange noises began to escape from her...and they sounded somewhat like abrasive laughter. So Freddy kept on doing that weird thing he was doing since it was causing Sturmsi to act in such a different manner than she was beforehand and eventually she got to laughing so hard that she fell to the ground on her knees and clutched her scaly belly with both of her spine-riddled hands as the nictitating membranes that served her as a lower set of eyelids sheathed her eyes while she continued guffawing unabashedly with complete abandon.

Hook's eyes narrowed with a mixture of suspicion and bewilderment at this as he canted his head in a questioning manner whilst the rest of his men just stood dumbfounded in total confusion as they stared blankly at whatever strange thing it was that was going on between the two entities before them.

Finally Sturmsi managed to compose herself somewhat and she stood back up to her feet as her laughter subsided while Freddy was still continuing manically to make his hand talk and then she did something rather unexpected herself. Her face became completely stoic as she began to sing a verse from the song in the video that had just came back to her and she even managed to keep the tune well enough for it to still be recognizable despite her awfully grating voice, "Yeah, I'm on the Myspace, baby...but I gotta confide...ah, ah-a-a-ah...I only got one friend his name is Tom and nowhere on his profile does it say he likes..._murdering children_." Sturmsi bent over and lowered her head towards the ground before her and she looked up at Freddy as the blank expression on her reptilian face changed abruptly to a shrewd sort of leer and she wiggled her spiky eyebrow-like things a couple of times when she slowly and deliberately uttered that last phrase.

Needless to say...Hook and his crew just looked at Sturmsi and Freddy as though they were both on crack. And in all honestly, they might as well have been. Jason just stood by idly without so much as a grunt. He honestly didn't give a crap what happened either way so long as he wasn't the object of anyone's direct attention, and for the time being he wasn't, which suited him just fine.

Freddy laughed heartily in response to Sturmsi's odd antics. He was genuinely humored by them just as much as he was relieved that his self-deprecating attempt to lighten her mood had apparently been successful and therefore well worth the humiliation that he had to suffer for it. Also, hearing her say the words "murdering children" had made him more than a little giddy even though he knew that she'd only done so in jest. God_damn_, it had been a long time since he'd done that and, boy, did he miss it! But he pushed the sadness that was invoked by this thought from his mind as Sturmsi busted out laughing again even harder than before at the funny expression that Freddy made when he suddenly put both of his hands together in front of him and sang yet another verse from the same song that had just come back to him, "And if I was William Hung I guess I'd sound a little bit like this..._MUWDEWING CHIWDWEN_." And he did the talking hand thing again one more time as he brayed the last phrase even more obnoxiously than he had previously. After that, they were both in stitches for quite a while.

Meanwhile, Captain Hook and the rest of the pirates of the _Jolly Roger_ had finally decided to sneak away so that they could avoid furthering their confrontation with the weirdos and get back to their ship before the demons' odd state of euphoria wore off. Hook had concluded, without a doubt, that Sturmsi and the rest of her lecherous crew were nothing but a bunch of freaks, and rightly so since that is exactly what they were, and he wanted nothing more to do with any of them one way or another. What he didn't understand, though, was that it had been very a long time since either of the two beings in question had laughed so hard and that random frivolity they happened to share for a few moments actually managed to dissipate much of the built-up tension that had accumulated betwixt them during that time due to the strong contempt that they both had always held for each other and would always still.

After she'd calmed down somewhat, Sturmsi finally noticed that Hook and all of his crewmen were missing, but she wasn't worried about it. She knew exactly where to find them. She ordered Freddy and Jason to follow her back to the motorboat so that they could return to their own ship as she turned tail and began to lumber back towards the beach, and her two minions followed her with reluctant obedience. At some point during the walk she began to slowly change back into her humanoid shape. She was eager to get back aboard the _Bestrafer_ now that she was suddenly in the mood to watch a few episodes of Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo. She would deal with Hook later.

_Author's Note: The whole "murdering children" thing and the song that goes with it comes from a video I saw on YouTube by a guy who calls himself Commodus Cash. It's a comical music skit that is supposed to be a parody of Freddy with a reference to William Hung thrown in for randomness. And I decided that the crew of der Bestrafer has had access to the Internet in this universe at some point in time and this particular video had tickled Sturmsi quite a bit when she'd watched it, although she'd since almost forgotten completely about it until this happenstance reminder, which was so unexpected to her that it actually got her pretty good. Indeed, she can be quite neurotic at times and her crewmen like to take advantage of this idiosyncrasy whenever they can._

* * * * * *


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

The wind whistled through the trees of the forest as Great-Big-Little-Panther stood silently in his teepee with his arms crossed over his chest. He was listening carefully to Tiger-Lily and Hard-To-Hit as they described the two men-like beings that they had just spotted near the village.

"The skinnier one talked about someone called 'Captain Sturmsi'," Tiger-Lilly informed the chief. "I sensed a malicious intent in his voice, which sounded very strange to me, like it was distorted somehow. And what he said made me think that he was a prisoner of this captain, something about there being 'restrictions' on what he was allowed to do. And I don't think that what he wanted to do was very nice."

"And I do not believe that the other one was able to speak," added Hard-To-Hit. "All he would do is make some grunting sounds in reply to his colleague."

"Oh, and another thing," Tiger-Lily said hastily. "The captain was referred to as a 'she'."

"And what did you say her name was, again?" Great-Big-Little-Panther asked curiously.

"Sturmsi, or something like that," replied Tiger-Lily.

"Thank you, Tiger-Lily. You both did the right thing by staying hidden," Great-Big-Little-Panther said as he commended the children for being cautious. "We cannot be too careful around these newcomers. There is a dreadful aura that emanates from their ship. I do not believe that any good can come of their presence here in Neverland, and I feel that we are all in great danger as long as it resides here. But I am still uncertain as to what we should do at this time except to stay alert and watch for signs. I believe the Spirits will guide us correctly when the time comes to act. For now, I can only tell you to be careful and to keep an eye on each other. You may also want to speak with Peter Pan and the Lost Boys about this. I would advise you to warn them of what I have said. I would also like to be informed if they have any information about the newcomers that we do not currently possess."

Hard-To-Hit and Tiger-Lily both looked at each other and nodded affirmatively. "We will go and visit Peter Pan and the Lost Boys and see what they have to say about the situation, if anything. And then we will return to inform you about what they have said," the boy told his chief.

"Very well," replied Great-Big-Little-Panther. "But please remember to be careful, and keep your distance as before if you should happen to see any more of the strangers."

"We will!" assured Tiger-Lily.

Then both of the children turned and left the teepee as they headed back out into the woods to make their way to the underground house where Peter and the Lost Boys lived.

Great-Big-Little-Panther stepped outside to watch them go, furrowing his brow with concern as he continued to ponder the situation. After the children were out of sight, he turned and went back inside his teepee to continue praying to the Spirits for guidance.

- - - - - -

It was late that afternoon when Peter Pan had returned to the underground house along with Wendy, John, Michael, and Tinker Bell after having spent most of the day at Small Monday Island Fair. The Lost Boys could hardly wait to tell Peter about their adventure on the beach with the pirates and the dead mermaid, and as soon as they saw him they all got excited and started speaking at once, making it impossible for anyone to discern what it was that they were trying to talk about.

"Whoa, calm down everyone! I can't understand a word any of you are saying! Be quiet, all of you!" commanded Peter sternly but with a smile on his face, and the room fell silent in that instant. The morning had been rather dull for Peter as he'd only gone to the fair to appease Wendy after Michael had been bugging them to be taken there for days, so he really did want to hear what the Lost Boys had to say now, as it seemed that they'd managed to actually have some fun. "Nibs!" Peter called as he pointed to his second-in-command. "Tell me what happened." Then Peter stood patiently with his fists planted on his sides as he listened intently to the story as it was related to him by Nibs.

"Well, Peter, it was actually Tootles who found the dead mermaid," Nibs explained.

Tootles stayed quiet, but he couldn't suppress the proud expression that appeared on his face after hearing Nibs give him his due credit for making the discovery.

"When he told us about it, we flew straight there to check it out," Nibs continued. "We were trying to figure out what killed it because some things didn't add up."

"Only its tail was missing," Slightly chimed in as he stepped forward to stand next to Nibs. "So we figured it wasn't the croc."

Nibs nodded his head and allowed Slightly to have his say, and so did Peter.

"And since the body was on land, it didn't make sense for it to be a shark, either," Slightly added pointedly.

Curly made a disgruntled sound under his breath after hearing this, but otherwise he stayed quiet.

"Ok, now what happened to your arm, Nibs?" asked Peter with much curiosity, noticing that it was bandaged.

"Well, I was just getting to that," Nibs continued. "The pirates came, Hook and a few of his men. They snuck up on us when we were looking at the mermaid and we got into a little scuffle. But everything turned out ok in the end."

"Oh, come on, Nibs!" Peter cried in frustration. "There has to be more to it than that. I want details!"

"It was my fault, Peter," said Tootles, coming forward. "Everyone else got away except me, and Nibs got hurt trying to save me."

"It's alright, Tootles," Nibs assured him. "You managed to free yourself, don't forget."

The rest of the Lost Boys giggled while recalling the expression on Mullin's face after Tootles had just kicked him square in the nuts.

"I know," replied Tootles as he smiled at Nibs for bringing that up. "But still, I wish I could've done it sooner."

"Anyway," continued Nibs, "when Hook was looking at the mermaid he said that its neck was broken. And then Old Crooked Tail came to get the body, and she told us what had happened. She said it was someone from the new ship that did it."

"What?" Peter questioned intensely. "New ship? What new ship??"

"Um...you didn't know that a new ship came to Neverland this morning?" Nibs asked, incredulous that Peter could be ignorant about something so profound as this.

"Um, no," replied Peter flatly. He was flabbergasted. He didn't understand how a new ship could have come to Neverland without him knowing about it, especially when there were others who did. "Where is it?"

"It's in the bay, not too far from Hook Island," said Nibs.

"When did it come here?" asked Peter.

"It was early this morning, I think, when we were all still asleep," replied Nibs. "I heard a funny noise, but it didn't wake you up, or anyone else either, so I didn't think it was that important. So I went back to sleep. We didn't find out about it until after you and the others had gone to the fair, and we decided not to mess with it until after you got back."

"Well, is it a pirate ship?" asked Peter hopefully. The thought of having a whole new batch of pirates to fight and to fool filled him with a lot of excitement.

"I don't know," replied Nibs warily. "It's really weird looking, and we've heard some bad things about it. Like that one of the crew members is some kind of monster."

Peter laughed merrily. "A monster? That's great! What kind of monster?"

"A girl one, apparently," said Slightly. "But a really mean one, though, and one that changes shape. Crooked Tail said it turned into a crocodile-like thing when it killed the other mermaid, and there was lots of blood."

"Wow. Ok, that's it, I must see this new ship right now!" Peter cried joyfully, and before anyone could say another word, he flew straight up out of the house and headed for the bay at top speed.

"Oh, kettles and skillets! I'm never going to get any rest!" cried Tink in frustration as she took to the air to follow Peter.

The others decided to stay behind. Tired from their previous adventures that day, whether it was with pirates or fairies, they all decided to take naps.

- - - - - -

When Peter first laid eyes on the _Bestrafer_, he was so confounded by its odd appearance that he had to light on the beach for his mind to continue processing the information it was receiving without simply falling out of the sky. Then he just stood there with his head cocked in puzzlement and barely took notice of Tink when she appeared next to him. "Wha-?" he wondered aloud. Then he finally managed to peel his eyes from it and looked at Tink. "That's a ship?" he questioned her.

"I guess, but it's an awfully weird looking one, and so filthy," she commented. "I don't like it!"

Peter shook his head to dispel the funny feeling that was in it all of a sudden. "I must go and check it out. There has to be a reason why it's here, and it's my duty to find out what it is." And with that, he took to the air again and began to float steadily towards the strange ship.

"Wait, Peter!" Tink called after him. Then she sped to catch up with him. Fortunately, he wasn't flying at full speed anymore, so she was able to do so. "Peter, please, be careful! I think there's something wrong with it."

Peter ignored Tink as he continued flying towards the ship-like thing. As he got closer to it, he seemed to become mesmerized by it. He stopped again and hovered over the water, gazing at the bizarre structure that loomed before him. It's visage filled him with a strange feeling that was unfamiliar to him. He perceived it as being both disgusting and beautiful at the same time, and he didn't understand how that was possible. "It's...magnificent," he commented absently.

Tink, on the other hand, was toughly disgusted by it, and the closer she got to it, the more she felt that way. "What?" she questioned him. "How can you possibly say that? It's the ugliest thing I've ever seen!"

Peter ignored her comment. "It has a word on it. Do you see that?" he asked, pointing at the orange letters on the side of the ship. "What does it say?"

"It says 'bestrafer'", replied Tink, pronouncing the word as best as she knew how to.

"What does that mean?" asked Peter.

"I don't know exactly. I don't think it's English," replied Tink. "But I don't like it anyway. It probably means something bad. I think we should just leave it alone."

"No, I must get a closer look," said Peter, and he started moving forwards again.

"Oh, I don't like this," Tink whined, but she continued following Peter anyway.

As they neared the _Bestrafer_, Peter flew higher into the sky so that he could hover over top of the ship to get an aerial view of its deck. Only, as he did this he discovered that there really wasn't a deck, per se. The entire topside of the ship was covered with various structures and in between them the gaps were what appeared to be gaping black pits that were covered with nothing but some rusty mesh grating. As Peter descended to get a closer look, he noticed that in most places the grating was damaged or missing, and many pieces of the broken steel cables that made up the mesh flooring had been bent at odd angles, causing it to be unsafe for anyone to walk on it without getting some very nasty cuts or even gashes in their feet and legs, or falling through to whatever lied the darkness underneath them. "It smells funny," Peter commented to Tink.

"Ugh, no kidding. It stinks like hell!" replied Tink, wrinkling her nose at the smell that was wafting up from the ship below them. It smelled like a cross between burning tar and raw sewage, and it was very strong, as if there was a whole lot of it somewhere just out of sight.

Peter descended a little more, looking for a way into the ship.

As Tink floated next to him and they got closer to the "deck", she noticed something else. Another scent that was intermingled with the already impossibly foul odor. It smelled like rotting corpses, and it caused her to gag. "Peter," she cried, gasping. "Wait, stop. I smell death. We've got to get out of here. Something is terribly wrong here."

"Of course it is, Tink. That's the adventure of it," Peter replied flatly and without much enthusiasm. He knew very well that there was something wrong with the ship, but he couldn't just leave. Not yet. Part of him wanted to leave, but he found that couldn't pull himself away from it now. He had to find out more. He wanted to see what was inside it. He just had to. "Help me find a way in."

"What?! No!!" replied Tink with dismay. "I've seen enough of this nasty thing already. Can we please go home now? I'm tired. And I'm scared."

"You can go if you want," said Peter. Then he spotted what appeared to be an open hatch with a ladderwell in it right next to a large metal box-like thing with many slits it that was coated with peeling white paint and streaked with rust and other kinds of filth. There was also what sounded like a relatively faint and seemingly randomized ticking noise that was emanating from it. "Ah, here, what's this?" he said as he peered into the square-shaped hole. "This must lead inside. I'm going down." And with that, he floated headfirst right down into the opening.

Tink moaned in frustration as she continued following Peter diligently, but she wasn't sure how much further she was going to be able to go with him now.

The inside of the hatchway they descended was supposed to be painted yellow, but almost all of it was missing so that the bubbled rust of the walls was streaked with the remnants of the paint rather than the other way around.

Tink also noted silently that some spots were discolored with a crusty brownish substance that looked a lot like dried blood...or maybe it was shit. She couldn't really tell. But she decided to keep that to herself since she didn't want to hear Peter gripe about how squeamish she was, as she knew he would if she bothered to complain about it.

The shaft lead down to a larger tunnel several yards below, and it had many fat black cords that appeared to be coated with a rubbery like substance running along the edges of the ceiling. As Peter chose a direction to go in, which was left, and began walking through the tunnel with Tink in tow as she clung to his cape, he noticed that some of the black stuff on the cords was missing in some places so that the white core in the center was exposed, which reminded him of a bone that was missing some of its flesh. Every so often there was a cylinder that protruded amongst the cords and gave off some light, as well as a faint buzzing sound, but most of these were caked with dirt, both inside and out, many of them flickered on and off, some didn't work at all for whatever reason, and a few were so damaged that there was no way they could work anymore. So the hallway was rather dark in many places, albeit not entirely. As Peter continued to walk, his boots made crunching sounds beneath him as the floor was laden with loose pieces of rust, broken glass, and some other types of debris that couldn't be identified by either one of the visitors to the odd vessel.

Then, after some time, they began to feel the vibration in the floor beneath them.

Tink clasped her hands over her eyes for a few moments, not bothering to say anything about it because she knew it wouldn't do any good. Peter wasn't going to leave until he was damned good and ready to, and it was obvious that wasn't the case right now. But she also felt that something awful was going to happen pretty soon if they didn't get out of here in time, not that Peter would listen to her no matter how much she pleaded with him.

They finally came to the end of the hallway after several minutes of walking, only to find that it was blocked by a large metal door that had a pool of some kind of dark liquid that had apparently seeped out from underneath it. The door also had a sign on it. The sign had two words at the top that were printed in large block letters in red and then there were two blocks of smaller text in black under that. And below that there was a triangular shaped symbol with what appeared to be a swirl shape in the middle. It was hard for Tink to read the sign at all because it was pockmarked and covered with so much corrosion and filth, but she could just barely make it out, at least the English part of it. The other part was in another language that she didn't know. Peter glanced at her, indicating that he wanted her to read it for him, and so she did.

"Caution. Employees only. Do not enter without permission. Machinery starts automatically. Toxic materials present."

"What does the picture mean?" asked Peter.

Tink sighed. "I don't know, except that it's probably a warning of some kind. A warning for us to stay out!"

Peter floated into the air a few inches so that he could get closer to the door without stepping in the viscous fluid that was on the floor in front of it. Then he put one of his ears up next to it to see if he could hear anything behind it. "I hear something," he informed Tink. "It sounds like...humming. Or some kind of droning noise. Hey, what's this?" Now that he was looking more closely at the door, he could tell that there was actually another sign under the one with the text on it, but it was covered with so much crap that he hadn't even noticed it before. He used his sleeve to wipe off some of the weird grime that was caked onto it, curious to find out what it might say, and after a few minutes of doing that he discovered something that made his heart leap with renewed adventurous joy. It was a big yellow triangle that contained the symbol of a skull and crossbones. "PIRATES! I _knew_ it!" Peter shouted with glee as he grabbed onto the dirty metal bar that served as the door's handle with both of his hands and began trying to pull it open with all of his might.

"Peter, NO!" Tink begged. "I _don't_ think that's a good idea!"

"Aw, Tink," Peter moaned in response and he grunted as he continued with his effort to open the door. "If I had a copper coin for every time you said that, I'd be richer than any pirate! I bet this is where they keep all their treasure!"

After several minutes of pulling to no avail, Peter started to fear that he wasn't going to be able to get the door open. It seemed to be stuck, but he didn't see a keyhole to indicate that it could be locked. Finally, he stopped and turned to Tink with a sigh. "Use your magic to open it for me," he commanded her.

"I will not," Tink replied defiantly, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Yes, you will," Peter informed her. "I demand it. I'm not leaving this place until I see what's behind this door. Now, please, Tink. Or else I'm going to be spending the night here."

Tink cried with disgust at this. She couldn't imagine being on this horrible scow at night, let alone trying to sleep in this stinky tunnel...at night! So she reached into her pouch and pulled out a handful of fairydust and threw it at the door in frustration. The dust hit the door in a great sparkly cloud, but nothing apparently happened. She was expecting the door to come open, but it didn't. Then the dust began to settle into the nasty pool of watery stuff on the floor. And that was all.

"Well, did it work?" Peter asked.

"Um...I don't know," replied Tink. "Go ahead and try it."

Peter grabbed the door handle again and pulled hard. But it still refused to budge. Peter sighed angrily. "Why didn't it work?" he demanded to know.

"I have no idea. I guess fairy magic doesn't work on this thing," she replied with trepidation. "Isn't that just great?" she asked sarcastically. "Doesn't that just make it even more of an adventure for you?"

"Hardy har," replied Peter flatly. "Stupid door!" he then yelled angrily, and with that he took a hold of it again and pulled as hard as he could one last time. And this time there was a creaking and cracking sound as some of the rust that was caked in the doorjamb broke loose, and then there was a loud grating noise as the door finally opened, but only just a crack. "Well, it's about time!" Peter cried in relief. He was just about to stick his face right into the crack to see whatever there was to be seen beyond the doorway, but he was forced to recoil at the horrid smell that came pouring out of it. "Oh, man, that stinks," he commented dryly, suppressing the urge to retch as he held the back of his hand against his nose.

"I don't think this door has been opened in years, or possibly even decades," said Tink. "So I really don't think this is where anyone keeps any kind of treasure," she continued, hoping beyond hope that Peter would lose interest in the compartment now as a result so that they could get away from it. She was starting to get a really bad feeling now, even worse than before. She didn't want to know what was behind that door, not at all.

Peter was finally starting to get a bad feeling too, but his insatiable curiosity was still overpowering his better judgment and preservation instinct. "Maybe you're right...but still...I just have to know what's in there. I can't help it." So he grabbed the edge of the door with both of his hands and began to pull again as he placed his feet against the wall next to it for added leverage.

The door groaned some more and many rust particles fell into the mire underneath it as it cracked open another few inches. And then more of the stink wafted out from the compartment just beyond it.

"Oh, Peter, this is so nasty," Tink complained as her eyes began to water, and she held her nose uselessly. "I think I'm going to be sick."

"Hang on...just a little more," Peter said more to himself as he continued to tug on the door and push with his feet to force it open. He managed to move it a couple more inches and then he called it good. The door was opened just enough now that he would be able to squeeze into it if he so desired. Holding his nose, he peered inside cautiously. It was very dark in there. There weren't any lights that he could see. "Tink, could you make me a light that I can hold?"

Tink groaned. "I really just want to leave now," she replied wearily.

"I know, but let me just see what's in here real quick, then we can go. Ok? I promise," Peter told her assuredly.

"Oh, all right," Tink whimpered as she reached into her pouch for some more fairydust. And she used it to create a small but reasonably bright lantern for Peter as requested.

"Thanks, Tink," said Peter as he took the lantern from the air before him. Then he held it out in front of him as he stuck his arm into the crevice of the door while continuing to hold his nose with his free hand.

He couldn't see much at first except that the floor inside the room was completely submerged in the weird fluid that was coming out from underneath the door. He held the lantern down closer to it to see if he could tell how deep it was. Close to the door, he could still see the floor through the murky stuff and he noticed that it was canted at a steep angle, so the floor was sloped downwards inside the room, disappearing entirely under the liquid just a few feet beyond the door, meaning that the liquid got deeper and deeper towards the back of the room. He also noticed that along the walls inside there was some kind of thick sludgy buildup and some whitish foam that floated near it. Instinctively, he dared not to touch any of it.

"I think the water is poisonous here," Tink commented when she noticed Peter inspecting it. "The fumes are making me sick."

"I wonder what's in it," Peter mused to himself, knowing that Tink didn't have any idea either. His curiosity was entirely morbid at this point, and he raised the lantern and floated as he squeezed himself the rest of the way into the compartment.

"Peter..." Tink moaned as she hovered just outside the door at the crack watching him go in further. She could not make herself go in there, not for anything.

"I just want to see what's making that sound," he said as he continued floating over the surface of the black pool. "Whoa, what's this?" he asked himself as he saw some strange looking objects near the back of the room. He flew closer to them to get a better look.

They appeared to be the components of a large machine, parts that were supposed to be able to move, but they were so laden with corrosive buildup that it didn't look like they would be able to function at all anymore. "This place must be really old," he called back to Tink, his voice echoing strangely in the large, metallic room. "This stuff looks ancient. I bet it hasn't been used in centuries!" Peter held his lantern up for a moment and saw that there were several long rectangular-shaped crevices in the walls of both sides of the room near the ceiling that extended about a third of the way down to the pond.

Just then, there was a loud, almost deafening boom and everything around him shook with it. And much to his surprise, the metal things at the back of the room in front of him actually started to move. And the noise that they made when they did this created a horrendous cacophony of screeching metal and grinding rust that intermingled with the shrill ratcheting of the motor that was now propelling them. And then more things started coming up out of the quagmire below him and also down from the ceiling. Giant metal armatures that swung about like pendulums. Peter positioned himself in the air between where the pendulums were going and held his lantern above him. He could just make out some of the massive gears in the ceiling that were now turning, connected to each other with a series of heavy chains that had been fashioned to mesh with the teeth of the sprockets, and there was a steady series of thumping that was coming from somewhere beyond them. Rust and dirt began to rain on him and he simply shielded his eyes from it, but then some fluid started to drip down from the ceiling as well. He dodged the droplets without much trouble until the stuff started pouring down like rain. At the same time, sparks began to fly as some kind of electrical charge was being created by the magnetic pendulums as they passed by each other through the stagnant air. He finally began to make his way back to the door then, but not before some of the wet material landed on his skin and clothing. "Ouch!" he cried as he felt it burning him. There was some kind of really strong acid in the water, or whatever it was. As he continued flying towards the exit, having to be careful to avoid being hit by the pendulums that kept swinging randomly in front of him, he rubbed at an especially painful spot on his arm, absently trying to get the stuff of it, only to make it worse by getting it on his hand. He hissed in pain as the burning continued to worsen and spread and he dropped the lantern he was carrying into the goop below him. He heard a hissing sound as it began to dissolve immediately, then what was left of it was promptly obliterated by one of the descending pendulums. Just as he reached the door and began to squeeze his way back out into the corridor, the entire ship suddenly lurched hard and caused the door to screech closed a couple of inches on him, pinching him and trapping him halfway inside. "Tink, help me!" he cried, starting to panic now as he heard a new rushing sound behind him. More of the fluid was now gushing out of the holes in the walls of the strange compartment, and the moving pendulums within it were speeding up and causing it to spray about. "Aahh!" Peter screamed in pain as several large drops landed on his back and legs and began to eat through his clothing and then also his skin, and it took all of his effort to keep from falling into the spreading pool on the floor just a few inches below him. He understood that if he was to submerge his foot in it, even for just a second, he would very likely lose at least some of his toes, or far worse.

"Oh, Peter!" Tink cried in terror as she grabbed Peter by the collar and pulled with all of her meager strength, not knowing what else to do since her magic had no effect on the structure of the ship.

"Don't get any of that stuff on you!" Peter warned loudly over the impossible racket that surrounded them, realizing fearfully that Tink could very easily lose an entire limb or even her very life from getting just one little drop of it on her. "It burns really bad!"

Peter cried and grunted as he tried to squeeze out of the tightened crack of the doorway. He tried as hard as he could and became desperate, so he ignored the pain that he experienced as many portions of his skin were gouged and torn against the rough edges of the door and the jamb, and he finally made it out. He kept to the air just long enough to get safely clear of the pool of nasty stuff that was continuing to seep out from the room behind him, and then he lighted on the dry floor several feet beyond it to rest for a moment lest he might just pass out. His heart was pounding and so was his head from the growing stench that permeated the air in the corridor, and his eyes were stinging and watering like crazy but he dared not to touch them with his contaminated hands lest he would certainly be blinded in an instant. So he just sat still for a few moments and tried to catch his breath, although his throat and lungs were beginning to burn as well from the fumes.

"Peter...we've got to get out of here..." Tink sobbed weakly as she descended to the floor, succumbing to the toxicity that was continuing to accumulate in air of the corridor.

"Tink! No, Tink, stay awake!" Peter called frantically, wanting to pick her up but remembering that he might still have some of the acid on his hands, because they still burned like mad.

Tink moaned and opened her eyes groggily to stare up at Peter as he knelt beside her.

"I need a pair of gloves, hurry!" he commanded. "Make me some, quick, before you pass out!"

Tink fumbled in her pouch in a drunken-like state to pull out whatever was left of her fairydust, which wasn't very much. "This...is the last of it," she said with bleary eyes as she flung it into the air above her. Fortunately, it was just enough to create a chintzy pair of blue mittens that were a bit too small for Peter, but that was all she was able to muster.

Peter made do with the mittens as best as he could, and he stretched one of them onto his right hand so that he could pick Tink up without getting any of the poison on her, then he placed her as gently as he could inside the other mitten to keep her protected as well as possible, and she finally passed out in the process.

Peter sat there holding her in the mitten for just a minute or two as the machinery of the _Bestrafer_ continued to run through its maintenance cycle before he forced himself back to his feet to make it back to the exit. He wanted to get back to the underground house as soon as possible so that Wendy could tend to his wounds and disinfect them before he got some kind of blood poisoning, and he also needed to get Tink back into some fresh air before she got asphyxiated.

Several minutes later, he found the shaft that lead back up to the hatchway that he'd come down, but when he reached he top of it he found that the hatch had been secured and locked. He pounded on it furiously with his free hand, as sore as it already was, and some of the rust and peeling paint became imbedded in it as he continued to hold the mitten that contained Tink in his other hand, and he hollered for someone to let him out. But after several minutes of doing this, no one came, and Peter remained trapped inside the ship.

He descended back down to the horizontal tunnel and began to make his way down the other side of it, hoping to find some other way out. He trudged through the seemingly endless corridor, occasionally tripping over some odd pieces of garbage that littered the floor, as the stench and the noise that permeated the vessel continued to inundate him, and the ship also continued to lurch periodically, causing him to stumble every time that happened. Then Peter saw an open hatchway to his left in the side of the wall just ahead, and the hope of an escape flared within him. He limped towards it as his legs were beginning to hurt even more from the stinging wounds that had been created by the acidic fluid that had dripped on them earlier, and now that many strange particles of dirt and metal had gotten stuck in them, that made the pain even worse. When he reached the opening, he placed a bloodied hand against the gritty wall next to it for support as he peered inside the room to check it out and see if it was safe to go in or not. And what he saw in there made his mind go numb. He could not even begin to understand what it was that he was looking at, and he felt that if he tried to figure it out, he would go insane. He tore his violated eyes away from the strange sight and hastily made his way down the hallway past the opening as he forced himself not to think about what he'd just seen. Later on, all that he would be able to remember about it was that there had been some kind of humanoid-like figures in the room with oddly-shaped heads that had no faces, and they appeared to be doing things to each other that he didn't want to know anything about as some other unidentifiable objects in the room moved about them in a strange, sickening kind of way. And there were noises, very strange, unnerving kinds of noises that were being made in there, and this would give Peter nightmares for a very long time to come, despite his exceptionally faulty memory.

Finally, Peter reached the other end of the corridor only to find yet another closed metal door. However, this one was a bit cleaner looking than the last one and it didn't have any signs posted on it. Seeing no other option, he went to it and tugged on the handle. Unsurprisingly, it wouldn't open. "Oh, come on!" Peter hissed. "Give me a break here." Desperately he began banging on the door and screaming at the top of his lungs to get someone, anyone, or anything even to open the damned thing for him. When no one came, Peter began to feel lightheaded and he sank to the floor with his legs curled beneath him. And then he began sobbing. He didn't understand how something like this could have happened. How something like this could be in Neverland. Or even exist at all for that matter. It didn't make any kind of sense. It was wrong, all wrong. It shouldn't be here. It didn't belong here, he thought to himself. And then he remembered that Tink had tried to warn him. Poor Tink. He cradled her in the mitten, which was now dirty, in his injured hands and peered inside it closely to see if Tink was still breathing. When he couldn't tell by looking, he held the mitten up to his ear. Then he could tell that she was, but just barely. "Oh, Tink..." Peter cried quietly as a few tears rolled down his cheeks, leaving trails in the blackish grime that was smeared on them. "Why didn't I listen to you. I never listen to you..."

Just then, the door that Peter was sitting next to swung open with a loud screech and a bang as it hit the wall, and he just barely managed to scoot out of the way to avoid being smacked by it, getting even more dirt and grime from the floor imbedded in the wounds on his legs in the process. He hissed with renewed pain and looked up fearfully at the tall figure that now stood before him in the doorway.

"Well...what's this now," it said in a deep, garbled voice that sent a series of chills up Peter's spine. "A...child. Mmm...how nice," it said as it bent towards him and took in a deep breath as if to smell him, and it also made clicking sounds against the wall with the long, shiny fingernails of its right hand.

Something about it made Peter feel strange, actually terrified, a feeling that was quite foreign to him, and he began shaking with adrenaline as he leapt to his feet and began to run back down the corridor to get away from it. He was in no shape to fight and for some strange reason, he didn't even feel like trying. As he ran away, he heard a strange crackling noise behind him just before the thing began speaking again, but it seemed as though it was speaking to someone else besides him, even though no one else had been there.

When Peter made it back to the vertical shaft, he flew up to the hatch again to find that it was still closed. Peter screamed at the top of his lungs in a mixture of fury and terror as he banged on it again with all of his might, not even caring if he obliterated his hand on the process. Then, suddenly, it swung open, and the sunlight that shown down upon him from the sky temporarily blinded him. Breathing the freshened air that wafted down the shaft gave him some more strength, though, and not caring what had made the hatch open, he mustered the rest of his energy and blindly shot up through the hole to achieve the safety of the sky once again. But just as he was clear of the hatch, he heard it bang close again from below him and, at the same time, something caught him by the ankle and slammed him down right on top of it, quite hard. He landed on his side with a thud, right on his right arm, and he heard a crack as a bone in it broke along with a couple of his ribs. Nonetheless, he continued to cling to the mitten that acted as a shroud for Tink, thankful that she hadn't gotten crushed in the fall, while whatever it was that had grabbed him continued to maintain its firm grip on his leg as it stood over him, blocking out the sun. Peter squinted up to try and focus on what it was, but his eyes had still not readjusted to the light well enough for him to do that yet.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" the thing asked him curiously in a strange voice that sounded almost female.

Peter opened his mouth to respond, but oddly enough, nothing came out. And he didn't understand why.

"Speak, child!" his captor demanded sternly as it shook him by the leg it held him by.

Peter took a deep breath and tried again. "I...I am Peter Pan!" he finally managed in a shrill cry as he tried to sound as strong as he could, but he had to try hard to suppress the fearful wavering that almost made its way into his voice. He was completely out of his element here and he knew it. And he hated it. "And this is my place!" he added scornfully. "You don't belong here!" he screamed at the, whatever it was, temperamentally.

The creature laughed at him coldly. "You are mistaken about that," it informed him.

Then there was a thud from under Peter and he was jarred as something else was apparently trying to make its way out of the ladderwell just below him.

The thing that held his leg lifted him up off the hatch by it and then moved its arm to dangle him over a gap in the steel cable mesh beside it in order to allow whatever the other thing was to open the hatch and ascend from it.

Peter's eyes had adjusted to the light well enough now to see what was going on, although everything was upside down now. But he could tell that the thing that came out of the hatch was the same thing he'd seen come out of the door at the end of the corridor just a few minutes earlier. He could also make out the one that was holding him now, and he saw that it appeared to be half-human, half-lizard, and female although it wore masculine clothing.

"Oh..." said the thing that came out of the hatch in a tone that that reeked of poorly suppressed disappointment. "I see you've caught him yourself, Captain."

"Aye, now you get your ass back down there, Freddy. I don't need your help with this," the captain spat at him with a hissing snarl. "Do it," she snapped, and when Freddy still didn't move, the captain stomped one of her heavily booted feet down right next to the hatchway directly in front of his face, hard enough to put a sizeable dent in the rusted steel edgework that framed the shaft. "Get back to work," she added flatly. "Or I'll smash your face in."

"Aye, Captain," Freddy finally responded in a subdued tone as he made his way back down the ladderwell, slamming the hatch closed as he went.

"Anyway," the captain sighed at Peter, after the other was gone, "what was I saying? Oh yes...this is _my_ ship and I don't even know you. That means _you_ are the one who doesn't belong here," she informed Peter with venom in her voice. "You are a trespasser, boy, a stowaway. Whatever you want to call it. Now, why should I let you live? Or do you not want to? Why else did you come here if it was not to die?"

"Please," Peter begged, as he carefully fondled the mitten in his hand, making sure that Tink was still warm and limber inside instead of cold and stiff. "I just want to go home. And my friend is dying. And maybe I am, too. But, no, I don't want to die. I want to leave now. I didn't mean any harm. Please just let me go so I can get help."

"Oh...very well," the captain replied in an annoyed tone. "But be warned, I don't tend to give anyone a second chance." And with that, she moved Peter back over the closed hatch and released his leg, dropping him down onto it.

Peter winced as the pain in his body flared up at the jolt, and he just sat there for a moment, unsure if he was going to be able to get back into the air again.

"Well, go on then," the captain ordered him. "Leave."

Peter stumbled to his feet and fiercely gazed into the captain's weird eyes as she started back at him with a blank expression on her face. He blinked a few times as he noticed that her reptilian features that he could have sword were there before had inexplicably disappeared. He began to think that maybe he'd hallucinated them when he remembered the story that Slightly had told him earlier, and then he realized that this was probably the same thing that had killed the mermaid. Peter leapt into the air then and managed to stay there, but he didn't fly away just yet. He continued to stare at the creature that remained standing below him on the rusty cables of the ship-thing, and she returned his gaze steadily as the sun was beginning to set on the horizon behind her. "Are you a pirate?" Peter asked her curiously as he cradled Tink in his arms. He had to know at least that.

Sturmsi laughed in response. "Um...not really. But I suppose you could say that, in a way. Depending on how you define the term."

"Do you seek treasure?" Peter questioned her.

"Not the kind that you would expect," she replied.

"What is it you want, then?" Peter continued to question, needing to know the answer.

"I am only curious," Sturmsi said. "I just want to know more about this place."

"Why do you care?" asked Peter with a tinge of anger and distain in his voice.

"Because I've never seen anything like it before," replied Sturmsi sincerely.

"Well, you shouldn't be here, and I think you should leave," Peter informed her coldly.

"I go wherever I please," Sturmsi informed him. "And unless you can make me leave this place, then I suggest you do that now before I change my mind about letting you go. Don't think that you're safe up there," she said as she raised her arm and pointed a finger at him in the sky, and it suddenly sprouted a claw. Sturmsi could not fly, and she didn't have any crewmembers that actually could either, but she did have quite a menagerie of projectile weapons at her disposal.

"This isn't over," Peter huffed down at her just before turning to fly away, and then he started to make his way back towards the underground house with Tink, who was still unconscious at the moment, clutched protectively against his chest.

Sturmsi lowered her arm slowly as the boy finally vacated her presence. Her eyes shined in the fading light and she narrowed them into slits as she stood silently on the _Bestrafer_, watching Peter go with a suspicious expression etched into her face. She could sense that there was something strange about him, but she couldn't tell what it was, other than the obvious fact that he could fly. And she wanted to find out more.

* * * * * *


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

The wind had picked up quite a bit and it was gusting through the trees of the Neverland forest in the dusky light of the waning day, making their leaves roar ominously when Hard-To-Hit and Tiger-Lily arrived at the underground house. Little did they know, Peter and Tink were still away on their "adventure".

Hard-To-Hit knelt down to the flat wooden panel that was embedded in the base of the tree trunk, which was hidden by a coverlet of moss, and found the crude iron doorknocker that was affixed to it. He took a hold of it banged it against the wood, making three strong knocks while Tiger-Lily knelt patiently at his side.

Wendy had been napping lightly in her armchair next to the fireplace in which only a few burnt coals still smoldered feebly when she was alerted by the sound. Her head snapped to its direction, alarmed when she realized what it was, and then she took a cursory glance at her brothers and the Lost Boys to see that they were all still sound asleep in their beds as she got to her feet to answer the door. She put her eye up to the peephole to see who was there first, and then she was relieved by who she saw.

"Why, hello," Wendy greeted them pleasantly after she'd slid the door open to her Indian friends, who peered in at her.

"Hi, Wendy," Tiger-Lily replied with only a hint of a smile instead of a full grin, as she understood that she and her brother had come on some serious business today, rather than just to play.

"Come in," Wendy called to them as she stood aside to allow her guests proper entry. After they'd crawled their way in, Wendy fixed the flap of moss so that it would continue serving its function before sliding the door closed again and relocking it. She knew they couldn't be too careful anymore, considering that the pirates had come pretty close to discovering the location of the underground house on several occasions in the recent past, and they couldn't afford to let that happen.

"Thanks, Wendy," Tiger-Lily said as a few of the Lost Boys, Nibs and Slightly in particular, began to stir in their beds.

"Where is Peter Pan?" asked Hard-To-Hit when he noticed that Peter wasn't there.

"Oh, he went out to the bay to explore some new ship that came this morning," Wendy replied nonchalantly as she stretched lazily and went to sit back down in her chair. She wanted to get as much rest as she could now while the boys remained still for a change.

"Uh-oh," Hard-To-Hit moaned as he looked at his sister.

"That figures," Tiger-Lily replied with a shrug.

"Why? What's wrong?" Wendy asked curiously but with some tension in her voice as she turned her chair around to face them. "You can sit down, by the way, there are some more chairs in that cubby-hole over there," she added as she pointed in the indicated direction.

"The floor is just fine," Hard-To-Hit replied as both he and Tiger-Lily descended to it and sat cross-legged next to each other a few feet front of Wendy.

By this point, both Nibs and Slightly were wide awake and sitting up in their bed as they listened to the conversation, and the rest of the Lost Boys were just beginning to stir at the sound of the voices as John and Michael continued to snooze.

"Great-Big-Little-Panther has given us a strict warning about the strange ship, and he wanted us to relate it to you as well," explained Tiger-Lily. "That's why we're here."

"Yes, he seems to be very concerned about it," added Hard-To-Hit. "He told us to stay far away from it because...well, because there is something very evil about it. That is all we know so far. And I know this probably seems like just another game to Peter, but I do not think that I have ever before seen Great-Big-Little-Panther so worried about something. So this is not just another run-of-the-mill adventure, if you know what I mean."

Wendy sighed heavily and sat forward in her chair, furrowing her brow with concern as she listened to the Indian children speak. "I see what you mean. I haven't even seen the ship yet for myself, but we've all heard bad things about it already. Apparently, a member of its crew has already killed a mermaid. Of course, this has only made Peter even more excited about it," she added while shaking her head in chagrin.

"We did not know about the mermaid," said Hard-To-Hit. "Do you have any more information? Great-Big-Little-Panther has asked us to find out whatever we can from you concerning this matter."

"Well, I only know what the boys have told me so far," replied Wendy. "I haven't actually seen anything for myself yet."

Slightly took this opportunity to join the conversation. "I can tell you what I saw, and everything Old Crooked Tail told us earlier," he piped up as he floated out of bed and went to sit cross-legged with the Indians.

All of the children were finally awake now, and the rest of them sat in their beds listening to what was being said.

"Please do," Tiger-Lily replied to Slightly as she and her brother looked at him with interest.

Slightly obligingly reiterated the entire tale with relish, enjoying the spotlight of attention as everyone else in the room stayed quiet until he was finished speaking.

"A shape-shifter," Tiger-Lily commented warily to Hard-To-Hit as he returned her gaze with equal trepidation. The Indian children had a pretty good understanding of the level of power that it took to perform such an act, especially if it could be done so arbitrarily at will, under water, and without chanting any magical incantations or having any spell components on hand.

"This is not good," Hard-To-Hit said simply. "I fear that Peter may be in grave danger."

"How long as he been gone?" Tiger-Lily asked Wendy.

Wendy glanced up at a clock on the wall behind her before responding. "A little over three hours now," she said after noting the time and remembering that she had done so prior to having fallen asleep. "Oh, I hope he's alright. Tinkerbell did go with him, though. She's usually pretty good about getting back here to tell us when Peter's in trouble."

Just then, as if on cue, there was a thud at the door, and all of the children in the house jumped at the sound. Wendy leapt from her chair and went to the door, looking through the peephole warily. But she couldn't see anything. "Huh?" she questioned herself aloud. "I don't see anything," she informed the others, turning around to look at Nibs.

Nibs leapt out of bed then and went to the door as Wendy stood back. He drew out his sword and readied himself in a defensive posture as he carefully slid the door open. Then he just stared in confusion at what he saw before him, not understanding what it was at first.

Whatever it was was lying in a heap on the ground just outside, and then a limp arm fell into the doorway and a blue thing dropped out of its hand onto the floor below it at Nibs feet.

"What the..?" Nibs questioned in befuddlement as he absently lowered his sword, sensing that there was no danger at present as he looked down at the blue thing and then back up to the brown thing in front of him.

"PETER!" Wendy screamed, and she ran to the doorway, pushing Nibs aside as soon as she got there.

"That's...Peter?" Nibs asked incredulously as he backed away.

"Help me get him inside, quick!" Wendy commanded, and Nibs moved forward again to comply.

"Wait, he dropped something," called Slightly as he instinctively scuttled over to the blue thing on his hands and knees and retrieved it before it got stepped on.

"What is it, Slightly?" asked Curly as he came over to squat beside him and take a closer look.

"It's...a mitten," Slightly responded incredulously as he dangled the dirty thing in front of Curly's face. "And it's got something in it, but I'm slightly afraid to look inside."

"Ew, it stinks," Curely commented as he wrinkled his nose and recoiled from it.

"That's why," Slightly replied.

Nibs and Wendy pulled Peter the rest of the way into the house and then the Indian children both went to assist them. Then they worked together to move him towards the bed. The rest of the Lost Boys who were still in it scampered out of the way so that Peter could be laid upon it.

Slightly finally took a peek into the mitten and gasped. "Oh my god," he muttered when he realized what was inside. "It's Tink!"

Wendy shot him a glance with a strained expression and went to Slightly to take the mitten from him. He relinquished it to her and she gently turned the mitten upside down and allowed Tink to fall out into her open hand. "What has happened to them?" she asked as she went back to Peter and took note of his terrible condition. "And what is that awful smell?"

"I don't know, but it's making me want to retch!" Curly muttered, still wrinkling his nose.

"It's obvious they've gotten into something bad on that ship," said Nibs.

"I smell some sort of chemical compound," John informed them as Michael stood closely beside him. "And I bet it's poisonous, so watch what you do with your hands."

The Twins stood silently, not having anything to say at the moment as they simply clung to each other in worry and watched what was happening.

Tootles began to sob and he went to Wendy, tugging on her sleeve. "Are...are they going...going to die?" he asked her with tears in his eyes.

"No, they most certainly are not," Wendy informed him sternly, although she honestly had no idea. "Nibs, will you look after Tinkerbell please?" she asked, turning to him. "She's not dead, just unconscious." Nibs went to her and took Tink in his hands as Wendy relinquished her to him. Then Wendy bent down to comfort Tootles some as he clutched her midsection.

"Wendy, you should start cleaning Peter's wounds while Tiger-Lily and I go into the forest to gather some medicinal plants," said Hard-To-Hit as he and his sister made to leave.

"Ok," Wendy replied. "It's going to be ok, Tootles. I'm going to help Peter now," she said as she left him and went to Peter to do as asked.

- - - - - -

A bit later, after the Indian children had returned with a bunch of healing plants, and having prepared them correctly for Wendy to administer to the wounded, Tinkerbell woke up.

"Oh...my head..." she moaned as she placed the back of one of her tiny hands against her equally tiny forehand as she lay on her wings inside her flower hut. Nibs had placed her there to allow her to rest, since no one knew what else to do for her. "Uhg....where am I?" she questioned anyone who might be listening as her vision was still cloudy and she didn't want to move. She didn't even know if she was still inside the mitten or not. "Is anyone there?"

"Tink? Are you awake?" Nibs asked, having heard her call from nearby.

"Nibs?" Tink called. "Please...tell me what's going on."

Nibs went to her flower hut and used one of his fingers to open the curtain. "It's ok, Tink, you're home now. You're safe."

"But...what about Peter?" she asked worriedly.

"He's still sleeping, but we think he's going to be ok," Nibs replied in an assuring tone. "What about you? Are you going to be ok?"

"I think so..." Tink responded weakly. "But I'm thirsty."

"I'll get you some water," Nibs told her and he went to get a cup of water from the spigot as promised, returning a few seconds later with it in hand. "Here you go."

Tink pushed herself to sit up in her bed and found out that her cloths were missing and that her naked body had been wrapped loosely in a cloth bandage. "Um..." she said. "What happened to my cloths?"

"Oh, we had to take them off because they had some nasty stuff on them, and you needed a bath," Nibs informed her.

Tink just sat there and blinked to herself as she processed this information.

"But don't worry, Wendy took care of it, and she made the rest of us go outside until you were tucked into bed," Nibs added.

"Hang on," Tink said and she reached into a tiny drawer near her bed and pulled out a new frock to wear. After she'd fumbled it on, she slowly scooted towards the curtain of her flower hut to draw it open, curling her legs beneath her as she sat on the edge of the opening to face Nibs, her skin pallid and her eyes red and puffy with dark circles under them.

Nibs held the cup of water up to her then and he tipped it just enough that Tink could reach her hands into it and pull some of the water out to bring to her lips. She sipped it slowly, not wanting to choke on it, and then reached into the cup again for another drink after she'd finished that one. After one more drink she indicated that she was finished and Nibs lowered the cup.

"Where is Peter?" questioned Tink.

"In bed," Nibs replied as he pointed in that direction.

Tink looked and saw that Peter had been wrapped in a sheet and that Wendy's chair and been situated beside the bed next to him, and Wendy sat slumped in it so that she appeared to be sleeping as well.

"Where are the others?" Tink asked then.

"They went to the Indian village with Tiger-Lily and Hard-To-Hit to consult with Great-Big-Little-Panther," Nibs informed her.

"Oh...all right," Tink responded as she clasped a hand over her eyes and rubbed her temples with her fingers. "I think I need some more rest myself." And with that, she went to craw back into her bed and lay back down.

"Ok," Nibs replied, and he continued to stand watch over his sleeping friends while the others were gone.

- - - - - -

Later on, it was nighttime, and the rest of the children were still away at the Indian village as Nibs and Wendy remained in the underground house with Peter and Tink. Wendy had awaken to relieve Nibs of his watch so that he could get some rest, and now Nibs lay on a gunnysack near the wall by Tink's flower hut, in which she continued to sleep as well.

Wendy now sat on the bed next to Peter as she reached into a bucket of clean water that was situated on a small end table beside her and pulled a dripping washcloth from it. Then she rung it out before folding it neatly and applying it to Peter's sweaty forehead.

Peter moaned at the feel of it and slowly opened his bleary eyes to look up at Wendy's concerned face. He had indeed contracted a form of blood poisoning from both the acidic compound and the bacteria that had gotten into this bloodstream during his ordeal on the _Bestrafer_, and his muscles were stiffened from it, causing him to be unable to move.

"Wendy..." he managed weakly in a garbled voice, as he could barely even open his mouth.

"Shh, Peter. Don't try to talk. You need more rest," Wendy responded gently.

"No...I need to..." he managed, trying to get up only to find that he wasn't able to even begin doing so.

"Here, I'll give you some water," said Wendy as she slid one of her arms under Peter and helped him to sit up, which took some effort. Then she grabbed a cup and went to the spigot to fill it up, bringing it back to Peter after she had done so. She put the cup to his lips and placed her other hand on the back of his head to keep it steady as he took a few sips. Peter had trouble swallowing the water because the muscles in this throat didn't seem to want to work any better than those in the rest of his body, and some of it dribbled down his chin, but he did manage to finally get most of it down his gullet. "I need to talk," he told Wendy afterwards.

"All right," she said as she sat down beside him again to listen to whatever he had to say. "What is it?"

"It was..." Peter began, but then he trailed off as he glanced at Nibs who was still lying on the floor across the room. After noting that Nibs was soundly asleep, he continued. "It was...horrible."

"What was, Peter?" Wendy asked quietly.

"I saw something...I don't know," croaked Peter with a strange look in his eyes. "I wish I hadn't."

"It's ok now, don't worry. Everything will be alright," Wendy tried to assure him.

"No, it won't!" Peter snapped. "I...I've got to...I just don't know what to do."

"Well, you can worry about it later," Wendy informed him. "Right now, you have to get some rest. You can't do anything right now until after you've healed up. So stop fretting. I'll take care of you."

"Oh, Tink. What about Tink?" Peter asked frantically.

"She's alright, she's still sleeping," Wendy said, placing a hand on Peter's chest to calm him. "I cleaned her up and put her to bed. Nibs has been checking on her, and she woke up earlier and drank some water."

"Ok..." Peter sighed with relief. Then he just looked at Wendy for a couple of minutes in the moonlight that was seeping into the window behind them as she stroked his hair to sooth him and softly hummed a lullaby. Then he closed his eyes again and fell sleep again.

* * * * * *


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Captain Hook lay motionless on the deck of the _Jolly Roger_, his back resting crudely against the outer bulkhead of his own quarters. He stared in stunned silence at the upright walking beast as it approached him with the massive, clawed feet of its huge hind legs thudding and clicking against the deck as it went with its thickly horned tail snaking rhythmically behind it as if the wicked looking appendage had a mind of its very own; its long, crooked arms were suspended outwards, dangling its upper sets of talons horizontally beside it as it closed the distance between them at a deliberately unhurried pace. Its elongated, spine-riddled head was cocked to one side in a blatantly predatory manner and its toothy maw was held agape as a low, rattling growl emanated from its pitch-black gullet. Its reptilian eyes were ablaze with the unquenchable fury of Hell itself and they were completely fixated on Hook, threatening to burn his very soul to a crisp well before its solid form even got close enough to physically cleave the meat from his bones.

The creature seethed an oppressive aura of doom that could be felt in the bones of every crewman as well as James' very own hook, which practically vibrated with it, relentlessly alerting him to the fact that there was no possible escape from this demonic entity that would very soon be mercilessly bearing down upon him. He'd never before thought it was possible for him to be afraid of anything other than that other saurian psychopath that had perused him for so long, let alone to be even more afraid of something else, but that he was indeed at this moment and he trembled in the newly discovered level of fear that now froze him in its icy grip, not wanting to even believe in the terrible visage that was transfixed before his bulging eyes; this creature, a being that went by the name of Sturmsirene, Captain Sturmsirene, that is, or Sturmsi for short, the heathenous captain of that filthy scow, the _Bestrafer_, made the tick-tocking croc of Neverland look mighty tame in comparison and this unbelievable fact was compounded by the equally unbelievable fact that just a few moments ago, this fiendish monster had appeared to be a relatively good looking woman of all things.

All the members of Hook's crew were strewn about the deck haphazardly, having been flung aside like mere rag dolls whenever they had tried in vain to halt the monster's advance on their now incapacitated leader. They could now only watch in terror as their helpless captain was about to be dealt with even more severely than they had been and wonder with mounting dread about what might transpire afterward. Once Hook had been dispatched by the fell beast, who would be the next unfortunate recipient of her full attention? Robert Mullins stood against the larboard railing of the ship, preparing himself to jump overboard. He would have done it already if it weren't for the nagging urge to stay just along enough to witness Hook's actual demise, however inevitable as it may have seemed at that moment. If the old man's life was finally going to be ended for real this time then he wanted to see it with his own eyes, to make sure that there was no mistake about it. The rest of the crew stood fast in dumbfounded silence, completely paralyzed by their own gut-wrenching fear.

Sturmsi finally stopped her advance about six feet away from Hook's position, plenty close enough for her to strike him. Then she slowly raised her mottled right arm above her dragon-like cranium and twisted her thickly scaled hand to position the long, bladelike talons that protruded from its knotted fingers at a forward angle, fully intent to sunder the man that lie at her feet and strip his bones bare in one fell movement.

Hook let out a cry of despair as his miserable life flashed before his eyes and he turned his head away from the murderously postured creature that loomed over him, instinctively shielding his face with his arms as he fully anticipated its intentions. The bulging muscles of the monster's arm that was suspended high above his cowering form tensed up as it was prepared to be brought down by its owner with a force that would completely obliterate him right along with a large chunk of the deck where he was seated. But right before the movement was to be executed something quite strange happened just then to make her pause and it caused the rest of the crew to gasp in a new wave of shock that befell them as they all began to witness the completely unexpected and undreamed of turn of events that subsequently transpired that day.

Hook's fearful cry had aroused the senses of the bosun nearby, breaking his paralysis and stirring him into action, however foolhardy as it may have seemed to everyone at the time, including himself. The small, bewhiskered Irishman scrambled towards his fallen captain in a fit of blind courage and, drawing his cutlass, positioned himself directly between Hook and the ghastly creature that towered over him just as it was about to strike him dead in that very instant.

"Oi, you stay yer heathen paws offa me Capt'n, you...or I'll...!!" he exclaimed in an angry tone with a flash in his bespectacled eyes that, for a moment, belied his stark raving terror.

Sturmsi was so taken aback by this unforeseen occurrence that she actually took a short step backwards in total surprise.

Smee's cutlass wavered in his hand as he forced himself to look up at her imposing visage, her claws still raised, and he saw that her terrible gaze was now fixed upon him entirely. He wanted to faint just then but he stood fast and kept his blade pointed up at her as he steadied himself in a mildly threatening manner, fully intent on doing anything that he possibly could to stop the enraged beast from killing his beloved captain, even if it was a futile endeavor that would cost him his own life. He had decided that it would be better for him to die along with Hook that day than it would be to survive with the guilt-ridden grief that he knew would plague him for the rest of his life otherwise.

Sturmsi snarled wickedly at the unbelievably brazen show of protectiveness that was being displayed by this puny man and she couldn't help but be stalled in amazement by his sheer stupidity as she tried to contemplate the motivation behind his temerity; pure, unadulterated stupidity was the only thing that came to her mind at the moment.

With that, Smee deliberately dropped his cutlass on the deck before him, remembering suddenly that it was utterly useless against this particular being and would only serve to irritate her even further, and then he dropped to his knees, his face redrawn with a dolefully pleading expression. "B-Begging yer p-pardon, Madam..." he began to stammer with his hands clutched together in font of him as Sturmsi continued to snarl down at him with a deep, throaty growl that vibrated every single bone in is meager body and grated against his very soul.

Hook lowered his arms from his face then, a good portion of his terror replaced now by pure awe at Smee's impossible audacity which was compounded by the fact that the ignorant fool even had the gall to still refer to the hideous creature as "Madam". He literally could not believe it and he closed his eyes for a moment and shook his head as if to drive away the delusion.

However, Smee remained where he was and continued to speak. "...eh, I-I understand that yer _very_ a-angry with me Capt'n at the moment now, to be sure, but, uh, with all due respect, Madam...m-might I _please_ be askin' ya for yer mercy on him right now?"

Hook was struck with an irrational urge to grab Smee and toss him aside like a sack of rotten potatoes, a bit offended by his lackbrained bosun's pathetic attempts to beg before this hellish demon on his behalf as well as a little perturbed by the unrelenting fortitude of his spirit, something that Hook had been trying to hard to break for a very long time, apparently with no success he noted with a minor degree of chagrin. But he stayed himself from this action when he noticed the subtle change in Sturmsi's demeanor that Smee had inexplicably invoked.

"I am but a humble child of the Emerald Isle that would be eternally grateful of yer gracious clemency at this dire moment," Smee squeaked earnestly, trying his damnedest to make it sound every bit as sincere as he felt it with his severely limited vocabulary.

Sturmsi's eyes narrowed into slits as she regarded the scrawny bosun in front of her with suspicious curiosity and her raised arm lowered slightly as her growls began to quite down a bit. She looked into his eyes and into his soul and realized that he would not be moving from this spot by his own accord, not while she was on board, be it the very death of him, and she also saw that it wasn't just because he was stupid. "Stand aside, Smee," she commanded him with a hiss. "I have no quarrel with _you_."

"Oh, I-I'm afraid I can't be doin' that now, Madam," Smee replied with a whimper, his expression now conveying sincere apology. "Ya see now..." he said, pausing for a brief moment to take a careful glance behind him where he saw that Hook was glaring at him with a strange mixture of bewilderment, awe, and disdain. Smee was not deterred by this, however, so he dutifully turned back towards Sturmsi and continued his appeal, "...this is me _Capt'n_ and if ye intends ta take his life, well then, ye'll just hafta be takin' mine right along with it now, to be _sure_."

Sturmsi growled heartily at him with what sounded almost like a laugh, making Smee cringe and lower his head as if he fully expected it to be cleaved right off just then. But instead, with a heavy, rattling sigh, she lowered both sets of her impressive claws all the way down to her sides and closed her jaws as she leaned down on her haunches so that her snout was almost even with Smee's forehead. Then she began to gradually shift back into her fully-clad humanoid form to appear less threatening. "Smee..." she called to him as her eyes softened considerably and she began to speak slowly during the transformation. "Captain Hook does not deserve your loyalty," she told him assuredly. "You should leave him now. Let me end his miserable life." Then she regarded him silently for a moment as she gave some serious consideration to an idea that had just come to her. "I'll take you," she informed him suddenly and her eyes lit up amiably when Smee pulled his head up and looked at her quizzically, not understanding what she meant by that. "Come with me and serve aboard MY ship," she coaxed, straightening her posture. "I'll make you a bosun on der _Bestrafer_..." she continued, gesturing towards the hulking structure that the starboard side of the _Jolly Roger_ was firmly attached to, "...the mightiest vessel that ever has and ever WILL traverse the wretched seas of this god-forsaken planet."

Smee just looked at her dumbly for a moment, trying to make sense of what she had just said. Finally, he stammered, "Eh, b-b-but, uhh..." then he trailed off as he turned around to take another look at the man who was still sitting on the deck directly behind him. All traces of distain were now absent from Hook's expression.

Hook absolutely could not believe what he was seeing and hearing. He simply could not compute the possibility that his dimwitted dunderhead of a bosun, of all people, had somehow managed to gain the favor of this overwhelmingly formidable entity and had, indeed, garnered at least a temporary stay of his execution. He could not understand, for the life of him, why the creature had not already killed Smee for his unintelligent display of impudence and even if it did not want to do so, for whatever strange reason, he could not then fathom why it didn't just simply bat him out of the way like an annoying insect. Then Smee looked back at him with an equally confused expression that also seemed to question him in some way and that questioning look filled Hook with a new sense of unease. Smee had never looked at him that way before and he was the only one who never had, until now. The sense of insecurity that Hook felt just then was, oddly enough, even more discomforting to him than the mindless terror he'd felt just a moment ago and he began to wonder if Smee was actually giving serious consideration to Sturmsi's offer to allow him to join her crew, an idea that really bothered him now that he fully realized that Smee was in fact the only thing standing between him and certain death at the moment.

"Come on, Smee," Sturmsi prodded gently, causing him to turn back towards her again. "I can guarantee you that I will treat you ten times better than he _ever_ did." She had, indeed, taken a genuine liking to Smee and fully intended to claim him as her own crewman if he would willingly concede to it. He was rather dimwitted but she also knew that his stalwart determination afforded him the capacity to master some relatively complex tasks as long as he was given the proper instruction by a patient enough teacher. And if Sturmsi possessed any virtues at all, patience was certainly one of them. There was another interesting quality that she had noticed about him, too, one that had something to do with his uncanny ability to discover important things by sheer accident, a strange gift that she knew would come very much in handy at times during her own mysterious exploits even though it was completely unpredictable.

"Well, I, uh..." Smee continued to stall, not sure of what exactly to say now that he had, in fact, become rather unsure of what it was that he actually wanted at this point.

Hook's mouth gaped in surprise as a wave of unexpected shame washed over him and squelched his temper out cold. He wondered, how did she know? What exactly was going on here? His eyes bored into Smee's back in a silent effort to get him to turn back around and face him again so that he might be able to see what was going on in his eyes now. He wanted to ask him how he could even think about betraying him, but then he realized that he already knew the answer to that question and, in all honesty, he had no right at all to hold it against Smee if he did go and do just that. Here was an incredible opportunity for him to put in with someone who was, undoubtedly, the fiercest pirate captain ever to roam the seven seas, someone who made even the great Blackbeard look like a kindly schoolmarm, and who would provide him with an unrivaled level of security in her floating metal fortress for the rest of his life if she kept her word to him. And Hook had a sneaking suspicion that she fully indented to do just that. What he saw in her inhuman eyes now was nothing short of pure adoration for his banjaxed little bosun and this sparked a flare of intense jealousy in him. Not only was Hook jealous of the indomitable presence that she commanded over himself but now he was exceedingly resentful of her attempt to acquire the allegiance of the one and only man in the entire world who had ever shown any true measure of loyalty to him. And he was still greatly confounded by the incomprehensible reason for that. He knew for certain that she wasn't just playing a ruse, she had no reason to do that. She had fully intended to take his life right then and there and there had been nothing at all to stop her from doing it before Smee's intervention had caught her completely off guard and she had proven to be unwilling to do away with him anywhere near as casually as she'd previously been expected to. Hook closed his mouth and his eyes softened with resignation when the realization came to him. She actually...respected him. And now, for the first time in his life, so did he. Hook carefully got to his feet then and grabbed Smee's arm with his hand, pulling the much smaller man up off the deck with him as he rose, and then Hook positioned Smee's body in front of his own like a human shield, since that is exactly what he was at this point. Then he placed his claw gently on Smee's shoulder, causing him to twitch with surprise at the feel of it and jerk his head around just enough that he could roll his eyes and look up at the man that he knew he belonged to. "Smee..." Hook finally spoke with a whispered urgency, "I realize that I may not have always treated you quite as well as you may have deserved and at times I can be somewhat hasty in my judgment, I will admit that, but I ask you to believe me when I say that I do appreciate your exceptionally dedicated service to me, especially _now_."

Sturmsi bristled at this act of blatant possessiveness and let out a fearsome warning snarl that was directed at Hook; she snapped her jaws at him, threatening him with instant decapitation if she caught him trying to coerce Smee in his decision. She had no desire to press the man into her service but she might just do that if Hook pressed the wrong buttons with her now.

Smee turned away from Hook then and glanced up at Sturmsi briefly before fixing his eyes on the deck as he did some pondering on his own for a few moments in silence. When he'd finally come to his resolution, he used his right hand to removed the spectacles from the bridge of his nose so that he could rub his eyes with the back of his thumb for a moment and then, after he'd readjusted his spectacles back to where they belonged, he lowered his hand and fixed his gaze securely on Sturmsi. He drew his hands together before him and kneaded them nervously as he took a deep breath before speaking. "Well now...that do be a, uh, a _very_ generous offer ya've made there, Capt'n Sturmsi, Ma'am, to be _sure_. And, sure now, that _do_ be a very fine ship ya have there." He glanced over at the _Bestrafer_ with a look of total admiration before continuing his statement apprehensively with a quiet gulp. "But, uh...well, ya see now...uh...with all due respect, Ma'am, I'm _oathbound_ ta stand by me Capt'n 'ere with the very last drop o' me blood if that's what it be takin', and...uh...if that be what it takes then, well, so be it then," he said almost nonchalantly. Then he just blinked at her expectantly as he waited for her much dreaded response.

Sturmsi stared at Smee with some disappointment for a moment. But then her gaze warmed a bit and a sly smile crept onto her now fully human-looking face. "Smee...regardless of what _anyone_ has said about you...you are an honorable man. And despite your obvious lack of intelligence, you are a seaman of the highest quality as far as I'm concerned, for what you lack in brains you make up for quite adequately in spirit. I don't mind telling you that you are the rare type of man who tends to have good form without even knowing it, which, of course, is the best form of all. I would love to have you put in with me and crew on my ship and I must admit that I'm sorely tempted to just go ahead and lop off your impudent captain's head, which I could do with much less effort than what it took that _boy_ to lop off his hand, and then press-gang you into my service," she told him. Both Hook and Smee gasped in tandem at this harsh statement that was given so candidly by her and Sturmsi's smile widened at their almost comically appalled reactions to it. "However...I shall relent," she continued in an almost sarcastic tone while still remaining to be fully genuine nonetheless. "I am so thoroughly _impressed_, Smee, by your commitment to duty, your courage, and your decidedly masochistic nature that I will allow you this victory today: you have saved your captain's life...however pointless as that may be...for now." Then she looked up and gave Captain Hook a final ire-filled glare. "And I sincerely hope that he does not forget this anytime soon." And with that she turned away from them and quickly returned to the _Bestrafer_ without another look back.

Smee, of course, had barely understood a word that Sturmsi had just said. All he'd really managed to get from it was the fact that she had decided, for whatever intellectual reasons that escaped him, to cease her attack and vacate the _Roger_, and that fact alone made him feel wholly relieved. He tried to contemplate the reason for this happening out of curiosity and all he could figure was that it must have had something to do with her feeling sorry for him, which was perfectly fine by him since it had gotten him exactly what he wanted and therefore he felt no shame about it.

Hook, meanwhile, pondered Sturmsi's comment about Smee having good form without knowing it. That had really struck a chord in him and as much as he hated to admit it, perhaps she did have somewhat of a point there. He decided that he would make it a point to try and remember that the next time Smee said something really stupid that got on his nerves and maybe it would at least prevent him from flogging the bosun to near unconsciousness for it. Not that he could make any promises about that.

Everyone aboard the _Jolly Roger_ stood right where they were in ever fearful silence while the mechanized grappling clamps of the _Bestrafer_ were hoisted up with a noisy rattle as she let loose her iron grip on the much smaller wooden ship. Then they all jumped when the supernaturally charged diesel engine that was encased within the dirty looking, metallic hull of the alien ship roared to life, causing everything around the gargantuan vessel to reverberate with it, and huge gouts of black smoke spewed forth into the sky high above them from the trio of giant stacks that protruded vertically from the hellishly complex structure and loomed before them like skyscrapers. Finally, after a seeming eternity of revving her awful sounding motor, the _Bestrafer_ began to move away from them sideways at a relatively slow pace until the desired distance was achieved between them and then she lurched forward with a loud, echoing clank and sped away from them so abruptly that she sent a huge wave crashing into side of the _Roger_ in her wake that violently pummeled the dwarfed ship and splashed over its railing, thoroughly drenching and nearly capsizing the boat along with its crew. The devilish contraption continued on its course at a seemingly impossible rate of speed for its equally implausible size and shape and didn't slow down a notch until it was almost on top of the very same position where it had previously been moored near the coast of Neverland, a location that was not too far away from where the _Roger_ herself was and had been sitting for so long in Kidd's Creek Bay, and then it stopped dead in the water so abruptly that it sent a mini tidal wave crashing into the shoreline ahead of it. Finally, her engine was shut down and the _Bestrafer_ became still and silent as the agitated sea around her began to calm down again as well.

Everyone else was still gawking at the now silent and safely distant _Bestrafer_, unsure if their trepidation could ever turn to respite, when Smee moved charily to pry away the hook that was still clamped onto his shoulder so that he could step away from the captain and turn around to face him. Hook just looked down at him with a dull expression on his face, completely unsure of what to say or do at this point.

"Permission to return ta me duties, Capt'n," Smee requested calmly while avoiding the captain's eyes, wanting desperately to break the awkward silence that had now befallen the ship. He could sense the other crewmen looking at him strangely, especially Hook, and he didn't much care for it. He just wanted everything to go back to normal.

"Uh, aye, permission granted," Hook replied absently but when Smee turned away from him to comply the captain grabbed him by the arm with his hand and dragged the bosun to a spot near the starboard railing of the ship that he hoped would be out of earshot of the other men. "Smee, I...uh...well, I..." Hook tried, honestly struggling to articulate a semblance of gratitude. Finally, after a hissing sigh, he finally managed to spit it out. "I should...that is to say, I _do_...thh...tha..._ahem_..._thank_ you, bosun, for...well...whatever it was you just did, and..."

"Eh, not ta worry now, Capt'n, I was only doin' me duty, to be sure," Smee assured him, affably cutting him off from the rest of his labored dialog while still refusing to look at him directly, unable to bear the distressed look on the captain's face that he knew was there now because of him.

"Very well then, Bosun" Hook said curtly and then he backed away from Smee, allowing him to carry on, which the bosun did gratefully. Then he turned to the rest of the crewmen, who were still standing motionless, a sight that jolted him back into his more customary state of mind. "What in the name of Darby McGraw are you worthless scugs gaping at? Back to your duties, you lollygagging nematodes! Get _moving_, you lillylivered rumgaggers, or by Flint you'll feel the sting of Johnny CAT!" Hook howled at them and he lunged forward menacingly, whipping out said cat from under his coat and cracking it in the air before him to emphasize his sincerity.

Without another moment of hesitation the crew sprang into a flurry of action as the lot of them scrambled about the ship in desperate search of anything that needed to be done or would at least make it appear that they had something to do in order to keep their captain's ill-tempered attention off of them. They all knew well enough that he was especially dangerous when his pride was wounded and it obviously just had been quite severely.

Satisfied enough for the time being, Hook retired to his cabin and slammed the door shut behind him, wanting nothing more than to be left alone for as long as possible.

* * * * * *


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

It was a bright and sunny morning in Neverland and a pleasant breeze was blowing in steadily from the calm, turquoise sea, bringing a fresh scent along with the ripples of lightly foaming waves that were being delivered into Kidd's Creek Bay. The sky was sparsely populated with benign cumulus clouds and the seagulls seemed to dance about them in complete harmony as they flitted gracefully in the air high above the water. The mermaids were also frolicking amongst themselves nearby and their playful feminine voices were ferried about by the lithe wind, causing them to intermingle with the soft cries of the gulls.

It was an oddly peaceful day for the crew aboard the _Jolly Roger_ since the frequency of Peter Pan's uninvited visitations had declined markedly as of late. The pirates had actually been afforded enough time to get fully caught up in their duties for once and with no sight of Pan still they relaxed and took a much needed breather as they lounged about the ship in as much contentment as they dared to exhibit, determined to enjoy the rare state of tranquility that was bestowed upon them for however long as it may last. Starkey, Mason, and Jukes were below deck, playing a game of Gin and drinking a bit of rum in the compartment next to the galley that was often used as a mess hall while Mullins stood a lazy watch as he sat at ease in the crow's nest snoozing on and off. Cookson's breakfast had not been quite as revolting that morning as it usually was and the unusual compliments that he'd received for it had spurred him to try and do even better for lunch, so he sifted through his recipes and planned the next meal with a new sense of purpose. Even Captain Hook was in an unusually lighthearted mood. He sat in his quarters engrossed in a softly cheerful melody that he was playing quite expertly on his harpsichord while Bosun Smee managed to keep himself occupied in a relatively useful way by quietly cleaning and organizing Hook's other belongings without making too much of a nuisance of himself. Furthermore, there had been no more confrontations with Captain Sturmsi since the last harrowing episode, and Hook was even more grateful for that than he was about not having to deal with Pan for a while. The _Bestrafer_ floated like a sleeping dragon in the fouled water at the other side of the bay in which she had been sitting in dead silence for the past two weeks and there had been no sign of movement, neither on, to, nor from her during that time - no deployment of mechanized longboats to the shore, no periodic firings of her nasty engine to keep the cogs greased, no expulsions of darkened fluid from the crusty scuppers in her hull, nor maintenance of any other kind that was evident from the outside - an unusually extended lull of inactivity that had caused even Mullins to stop gawking at her in constant fear that she might suddenly leap over the bay and crush them without any warning.

All was well, indeed, and as much as all of the pirates were appreciating the liberty it afforded them to take there was, however, a wisp of slight unease fluttering about their ship like a mischievous sprite that was intent on bringing an untimely end to the undeniably fleeting reprieve from their usual strife. Things were, indeed, much too quiet and although none of them wanted to admit it, it was beginning to feel more and more like the calm before a storm.

Eventually, Starkey and Mason grew tired of the card game as they repeatedly lost rounds to young Jukes and after a final hand they both begrudgingly conceded to his victory and got up from their seats to vacate the room.

"Good game, gents!" Jukes called after them jovially as they left and then he made his way to his workshop to tinker with some gadgets that were still in the early stages of their compilement. The other two men wandered up to the main deck where they meandered about in search of some new frivolity with which to entertain themselves and Starkey found his way to the larboard bow where he produced a small, ornate spyglass that he used to try and catch a glimpse of the mermaids that he heard larking about not too far away.

Mason glared balefully over the starboard railing at the distant and suspiciously inert bulk that comprised the _Bestrafer_ for several moments before making his way over to Starkey's location. "Shiver me, cully," he said gruffly as he leaned over the railing next to his thinner comrade, "don't it seem just a bit too quiet around here lately?"

Starkey sighed with a tinge of dismay at the serious concern in Mason's voice as it finally alerted him to the growingly uncomfortable situation they were in and he lowered his spyglass and turned to face him. "Aye...I suppose you may have a point there, old chap. But don't jump the gun so soon. We should enjoy this spot of recess from the usual calamity we're too often beset with for as long as possible. We quite well deserve it, don't you know?"

"Aye, matey, I can't argue with that," Mason replied. His drawling baritone voice sharply contrasted that of his British shipmate. "But still, I can't help it I got this sinkin' feelin' that somethin' bad's gonna happen just when we're least expectin' it," he added. "I'm just sayin', maybe we shouldn't be gettin' too complacent and be lettin' our guards down is all."

"Very well, then. What say you to a friendly joust, you scurvy scug?" Starkey taunted playfully as he drew out his rapier and wiggled it at Mason's amply muscled chest to cajole his larger colleague into engaging him in a sporting duel. "Nothing like a spot of fencing to perk up a pirate, don't you know?"

"Bah!" Mason bellowed, trying to sound genuinely threatening as he produced the large hammer that he always carried as both a weapon and a tool and brandished it at Starkey. "I'll pound the livin' daylights outa yer lillylivered ass, ya puny li'l pansy!"

And with that, Mason lunged at Starkey and tried to bash the rapier out of his hand while Starkey tried to keep him at bay without actually sticking him. Eventually, Mason managed to successfully land a somewhat lucky strike and once Starkey was disarmed he dropped his hammer to even the odds and punched one of his ham-like fists into the meaty palm of his other hand to indicate his intention of continuing the brawl bare-handed.

Starkey was ready to be done with the skirmish now that he was at a serious disadvantage, knowing very well that he stood no chance against Mason in a wrestling match, and he rather detested wrestling anyway as it was in no way his forte, so he turned to make a hasty retreat but was caught by Mason who lunged at him and tackled him rudely down to the deck. Starkey flailed his arms and legs widely as he tried to get back on his feet but Mason flipped him over and effortlessly pinned him down with one knee resting firmly on the man's paltry chest, using his superior weight to secure him fast. Then he put his hands around Starkey's neck and pretended to strangle him as he gently throttled his head against the deck.

"What say you now, ya miserable li'l mully?" Mason gibed at him and when Starkey whimpered pathetically in defeat he laughed heartily, reveling in his current state of complete dominance over the daintier pirate.

"Come now, Mason, this is poor form!" Starkey insisted when he finally found his voice. "Can't you see that you've won? Get off of me, you labbering lout!" he demanded, and finally Mason relented as he released Starkey and got to his feet. Now that he was free, Starkey used one of his hands to push himself up but remained seated on the deck as he used is other hand to rub his abused neck. "I say, you better not have bruised me or I'll have your guts for garters!" Starkey threatened, genuinely upset at Mason for manhandling him in such a crude fashion. Starkey prided himself on his elegance, and he was an excellent sword fighter, but he hated being reminded of his inequity when compared to the physical temerity of the other men who crewed on the _Roger_ when it came to unarmed combat. Even Smee could best him in that area despite his diminutive stature because the wiry old bosun was surprisingly strong for his size and a lot feistier than he looked, not to mention a lot less squeamish about getting disheveled than Gentleman Starkey was.

Mason laughed at him again. "Oh, quit yer bellyachin'! You ain't hurt!" he insisted and then he offered one of his hands to Starkey to help him get up off the deck.

Starkey accepted it grudgingly and pulled himself to his feet with Mason's help and then he brushed himself off, straightened his shirt, and smoothed his cloak in a flustered manner.

"How about a game of checkers?" Mason offered.

Starkey glared at him with disdain for a moment but then sighed as he let go of his contempt. "Yes, I do believe that would be a more tasteful diversion at the moment," he replied, and then he went with Mason to set up the board.

Starkey and Mason played their game of checkers quietly with the old weather-beaten pieces that sat upon a makeshift table they'd situated between them on the main deck so they could enjoy the fair weather as they sipped at some of the port that Mason had brought up from his personal stash and thus Starkey was put in a much better mood; he'd all but forgotten about the humiliation he'd recently suffered now that he was slightly buzzed from the potent beverage that Mason had been kind enough to share with him as a peace-offering for having ruffled his feathers a bit more than what was intended earlier.

Then came down the panicked call from the crow's nest, shattering the tranquil scene like a cheaply made looking glass that had just been struck with a sledgehammer. "Avast!" cried Mullins at the top of his lungs. He had sharp instincts and a sixth sense that was markedly more attuned than any of the other pirates on the _Roger_, thus he'd been alerted by a tingling sensation that seemed to be tainting the fair wind that was blowing in from the outer sea and it had prodded him to his feet to begin scanning the horizon with his spyglass well before the source of the disturbance had actually come into view. "We got company off the starboard bow! And a lot of it!"

"Oh, I say..." Starkey mumbled woefully when he realized that they weren't going to make it through this day without some sort of debacle befalling them after all.

"What did I tell ya?" Mason scolded as he bolted from his seat and rushed over to the foot of the mainmast where he looked up at Mullins and then squinted in the direction where the aloft man was pointing. He could see nothing there at the moment. Then he rushed over to the railing and fixed his gaze on the _Bestrafer_, figuring that she must be the source of Mullins' agitation. But she was still sitting impassively, just as idle as she had been for the past two weeks without so much as a peep. Then he caught a glimpse of something else on the horizon and he watched intently as it, and several others like it, came clearer into his view. "Well blow me down and scrub the mizzenmast with me!" he exclaimed. "Yarr, maties, fleet off the starboard bow!"

Starkey approached the railing with his spyglass drawn and held up to his eye in the direction that Mason was now pointing. "My word! Who could they be?"

"Sound a general alarm, quick!" Mullins commanded.

Starkey went over to the ship's bell and began ringing it steadily.

Captain Hook was startled by the sudden commotion that was going on outside of his cabin and it caused him to hit a wrong note on the tune that he'd been playing on his harpsichord very smoothly beforehand. He growled with irritation as his good mood was promptly dispelled and he pounded both his fist and claw down onto the keys, which caused the instrument to produce an angry sound that conveyed his own displeasure quite accurately. "Odds, bobs, hammer and tongs!" he yelled as he bolted to his feet and kicked the stool aside.

"B-Bejaybers!" Smee squeaked fearfully in surprise at the unexpected outburst of rage.

Then Hook made his way to the door of the cabin and kicked it open before stepping outside with Smee following him at a respectable distance in case even more violence was about to ensue.

"What in the name of Darby McGraw is going on out here??" Hook demanded loudly, glaring at Starkey and Mason with derision as he startled them both into silence. "There had better be a good explanation for this!" he warned with growing vehemence as he brandished his hook at them threateningly. "SPEAK, you worthless sea-cretins, before I tie your vocal cords into tiny bows...on top of your heads!!"

"Captain, there are several other ships coming toward us!" Starkey said as he approached Hook tentatively and pointed in the direction of the incoming vessels.

"Smee! Fetch me my spyglass, double quick!" Hook commanded, snapping his head around to face the cringing bosun behind him.

"Oh, aye, Sir!" Smee replied and then he scrambled back into the cabin to retrieve the requested object while Hook went to stand before the starboard railing. Within a minute, the bosun rushed back out with the spyglass clutched to his chest and when he reached Hook's side he suspended it upwards in both of his outstretched hands for the captain to take it from him.

Hook snatched the instrument carefully from Smee and, after making a cursory inspection of the seemingly innocuous _Bestrafer_, he used it to spy the growing multitude of new ships that were now closing in on their position.

Just then, Jukes and Cookson appeared on deck, having been roused by the bell. "What's happening, maties?" Jukes asked with a bewildered expression.

"There are a number of strange vessels over yonder that appear to be making their way towards Neverland," Starkey informed him.

Jukes used his hand to shield his sharp eyes from the overhead glare of the sun as he gazed out into the bay. "Shot, shell, and cartridge..." he said incredulously when he saw them. "How many of them are there?"

"I don't believe we can be quite certain of that just yet. It seems as though another one appears on the horizon with every passing minute," Starkey said with a growing sense of unease as he continued to scan the horizon with his spyglass. "There's at least seven of them so far I can tell at the moment."

"Billy Jukes!" Hook barked suddenly. "Run out Long Tom and make ready to fire on my command!"

"Aye, aye, Captain!" Billy replied and he went to carry out the order with haste.

"Uh...with all due respect, Captain, surely it would be wiser for us to discern their intentions before making any hostile actions...don't you think?" Starkey put forth boldly. He was quite troubled by the disparity of the situation that would arise if they should happened to become engaged in a battle with the potential new enemies that he felt certain were in league with one another, as the _Roger_ would be severally outnumbered and outgunned and the pirates wouldn't stand much of a chance of surviving a hostile encounter if the opposing forces ganged up them as he expected they would if provoked. Firing upon them prematurely would most certainly be a suicidal undertaking.

Hook growled furiously like a mad dog and lowered the spyglass that was gripped in his hand from his face down to his side as he turned his head slowly and bared his gritted teeth at the crewman who had just inadvertently sparked his ire. Then he lunged at Starkey, causing Smee to fall backwards onto the deck beside him as the bosun tried to backpedal clumsily out of the captain's way. Starkey was just about to do the same when Hook swung forth his claw and impaled the front of his shirt and then hoisted him up by it several feet off the deck, causing him to yelp and squiggle in fearful surprise. Hook just glared at the man suspended before him with seething contempt for a moment before bringing him a bit closer for a right proper ass chewing. "How DARE you question my orders, you insolent POLTROON!!" he screamed at the top of his lungs right into Starkey's face, which quickly grew pallid as it was filled with an expression of stark terror. "I've grown tired of your pompous, self-righteous attitude, Mr. Starkey," Hook spat, violently shaking the man that dangled from his claw. Then, with a murderous roar, Hook lifted his claw arm and flung the hapless man, inverting him in the air like he was made of nothing more than cloth before slamming him down and depositing him onto the deck right in front of himself with the top of Starkey's head pointing toward Hook's toes. "I'll CLEAVE you from brisket to brainpan with this HOOK and when I am done with you they'll find your head in the crow's nest and your feet in the hold!!!" Starkey's backside had hit the deck with a painful crack and he just lied there upon it, whimpering in a daze as the captain loomed with his claw suspended over him and Hook contemplated the amount of satisfaction that would be garnered from totally eviscerating him with it right then and there.

Smee got to his feet then and decided to try and defuse the situation by offering a suggestion of his own that had just come to him. He knew it was a risky venture but he sensed that the captain truly intended to impulsively kill Starkey right then, which was something that he might regret doing later, and the bosun felt obligated to try and save his shipmate's life by drawing the captain's enraged attention away from him at least temporarily. Smee knew that Hook might hurt him for it too, quite severely even, but he rather doubted that his captain would actually kill him. He'd been in Starkey's place many times before and he'd always managed to snake his way out of it one way or another, oftentimes by voicing some inspirational idea that came to him out of the blue, just in the nick of time, and he had one of those now. "Eh, b-b-b-beggin' the Captain's pardon, Sir," he began quickly just as Hook was about to drop his anchor right into Starkey's helpless gizzard and he flinched when the infuriated captain paused and then turned his hateful gaze upon him instead, "eh, b-but mighten we oughta be hoistin' the anchor, Sir, eh, i-in case that we might be havin' to tack the _Roger_ for a, uh, defensive maneuver of some sort?" he asked tentatively, scratching his head and shrugging his shoulders as if he wasn't even quite sure of what it was that he was saying, but once it was out of his mouth it he decided that it did sound like a pretty good idea to him after all.

Hook lunged at him then with another angry snarl and Smee put his hands up defensively as he lowered his head and expected the worst but he stood his ground as he was quickly engulfed by the approaching captain's immense and forbidding shadow. Then Hook bent over him and thrust his claw right in between Smee's raised hands, placed it firmly under his furry chin, and used it to raise his head up enough that Hook could glare down into his bespectacled bosun's eyes with a new expression of suspicious curiosity. "Smeeeeee..." Hook growled accusingly through his gritted teeth before relaxing his jaw and continuing to speak in a more human tone, "I can hardly believe it...but for once you've actually said something...meritorious."

"Oi, uh, I'm sorry, Capt'n Sir! I-I won't let it happen again, Sir!" Smee assured him hastily, mistaking the word "meritorious" to mean something that was bad.

Hook growled at him with mild annoyance and pushed the blunt edge of his claw into the bosun's chest just hard enough to make him fall back down onto the deck without seriously hurting him. "Man the capstan!" he ordered the rest of the crew. "Up anchor! Double-time now, you scurvy dogs!" When Cookson, Mason, and finally Starkey scrambled to carry out that order Hook turned back to Smee, who was still sitting on the deck stunned with confusion. "Look lively, Smee! Get to the helm!" Hook ordered him as he pointed in the direction that he wanted him to go.

Smee complied with the order as hastily as he could by loping towards the helm on all fours with a surprising speed and fluidity that made Hook raise an eyebrow at him as he went. Smee did it because he was afraid that if he tried to stand up and run normally just then he would just trip over his own feet and fall flat on his face so he figured that moving with his hands padding the deck in front of him like that was the fasted way for him to get where he was going at the moment and he felt safer that way too, because it kept more distance between his head and the captain's namesake.

Hook had never before in his life seen a human being who was able to move so easily in that particular fashion and he couldn't help but be amazed at seeing it now, especially since the practitioner was a man of advanced age, and it even made him crack a little bemused smile for a moment as he considered Smee's shameless temerity when it came to following his orders, however undignified as it so often was. Then he changed his expression to a more customary sneer as he turned towards the capstan while Mullins descended from the mainmast and joined the others to help them finish hoisting the anchor. Hook pulled out his cat-o-nine and cracked it in the air as he approached them. "HEAVE, you lollygagging rum-gaggers, or I'll have you all lashed to the gratings before the end of the watch!" Once the anchor was secured, the four men made their way up the skyladders and into the rigging to ready the mainsail on the captain's order. "Jukes!" he called then as a new thought struck him. "Lower the standard! Quickly now!" He didn't want their pirate flag to be seen by the men on the other ships in case they happened to be pirate hunters and he sighed when Jukes did as he was told. He didn't like this situation at all and he felt quite vulnerable. The other ships were closing in fast and they might have already seen their flag and if they decided to attack, for whatever reason, there wouldn't be much of a chance of escaping them. There were even more of them now, ten he counted. He raised his spyglass again and looked for their standard. They had one, all right, and they all flew the same one, but it wasn't one that Hook recognized. "Great gobs of galleon grease!" he muttered excitedly. "What cozening is this? An armada of pirates, or what?" Mullins appeared beside him then, having come back down from the rigging.

"Captain...if I'm not mistaken those ships bear the flag of the Temple of Rundoon!" said Mullins fearfully.

"What's that, Mullins?" Hook asked in bewilderment.

"Rundoon, Sir," Mullins replied. "It's a mythical desert island somewhere off the coast of the Middle East, or at least I thought it was mythical until now. Supposedly it's run by an evil king named Zarboff. I don't know much else about it, though. I've only heard bits and pieces of the legend myself. But truth be known, if that's really where this fleet hails from, then we are all in deep trouble! That Zarboff is not one to be trifled with, not even by a fierce pirate such as yourself, Captain."

Hook growled at Mullins with mounting displeasure but let him continue speaking for the time being, just in case the Brooklyn bandit might happen to be right about something.

"As for their intentions, my only guess is that these ships have been sent to annex Neverland in the name of their king and to press all of its denizens into slavery. Our best bet would be to hightail it outa here right now before it's too late!" Mullins insisted with desperation in his voice.

"BELAY that mutinous tommyrot before I split you jaw and crupper!" Hook commanded vehemently. "We will NOT be running away like a bunch of spineless bleaters, you livering mollycoddle of a coward! Not before we even know what their true intentions actually are! And I'll certainly not be acting on your mere babble alone!"

"Have it your way, Sir," Mullins conceded. "But by the time we know for sure one way or another then it might be too late to save our hides. We're sittin' ducks here, Sir."

"Enough! You will go back to your post now, Mullins, where you will await my further instruction without another complaint or by Flint's bones, even if your fears are validated, I'll make sure that you're the first tar on this ship to be tucked away with Davy Jones this day!" Hook informed him.

"Aye, Sir," Mullins acknowledged with thinly veiled resentment as he turned away and went to climb back into the rigging without another word for the time being.

Once Mullins had vacated his immediate presence, Hook returned to monitoring the approaching fleet of well-armed frigates that was continuing to descend upon Kidd's Creek Bay at a rapid pace and, suddenly, he wondered if Captain Sturmsi and yet been alerted to their presence and, if so, how she might be reacting to it and what, if any, plans she might be making to respond to them if they did prove to be hostile. There was no way for him to tell at the moment.

- - - - - -


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

Meanwhile, aboard the _Bestrafer_, Captain Sturmsi was lounging in her quarters, supported by a dilapidated draughtsman's chair that was pushed backwards on its swivel in which she sat very much at ease with both of her legs propped up on a cluttered desk in front of her. She appeared to be quite apathetic about the developing situation as she stared dully at the flickering green dots that were displayed on a large CRT monitor that occupied the desk along with her feet and a large number of other miscellaneous devices that had various colors of blinking lights and LCD readouts on them, and she sang along in an almost dreamlike state to a piece of her favorite German rock music called "Reise, Reise" that was playing on a loudspeaker nearby, which just so happened to be about the strife of men at sea. Her radar had detected the advancing fleet long before Robert Mullins had ever caught wind of them and she had been keeping a patient weather eye on them this whole time while she stayed relaxed. She didn't know who they were or where they were from, not yet, and although she figured that they were hostile she knew that they posed no significant threat to her, so for the moment she had no reason to worry about anything. She was, however, at least mildly interested in finding out more about them and she was also a bit curious to see how they might react to the presence of her ship. One of her crewman had suggested firing up the engines as a precaution, especially since it had been over two weeks since they'd last been started and therefore it might take them a little longer than what was normal to get running smoothly, but Sturmsi had said no to that. She was a very methodical creature and quite reserved with a strong sense of justice and a penchant for creating irony and she liked to bide her time as much as possible, saving every action for the most opportunistic moment to be executed so that maximum results would be achieved every time. For now, her instincts told her that it was best to "play dead" in the water and to remain as innocuous as it was possible for her exceptionally forbidding vessel to appear to anyone in this archaic realm of existence. The sound of her engines could be very frightening to those who were not familiar with her technology and often was even still to many of those who were because there was more than technology at work in them, and that alone could prove to be quite an effective deterrent to those who might actually seek to confront the _Bestrafer_, besides her imposing visage, of course. It was a rather sneaky tactic and Sturmsi enjoyed being sneaky whenever possible, especially when it came to dealing with pompous human males who either didn't know their place or refused to accept it before it was too late. Suddenly, she found herself wondering what Captain Hook might be thinking just then and what course of action he would be taking as this unusual turn of events unfolded before him. She wondered, would he try to flee or, if the invaders attacked him, would he stay and fight to the death? The question intrigued her. She jumped up from her seat then and grabbed a dusty telescope that had been sitting neglected for quite some time in a corner of the room, then she took it over to a window that overlooked the bay on the starboard side of the _Bestrafer_ and focused it on the _Jolly Roger_ with mounting curiosity as the situation began to escalate.

- - - - - -

The invading fleet of Rundoonians had been traveling together in a loose formation as they neared Kidd's Creek and as soon as the lead ship had reached the edge of the bay it stopped there and the rest of the fleet lined up next to the flagship with an even number on both sides. There were eleven of the ships in all. Their crewmen had, of course, sighted both the _Roger_ and the _Bestrafer_ and were plotting their next course of action now that they were in place for an attack. The _Roger_ would be easy enough for them to subdue if her crew should choose to resist them but they had no idea what the _Bestrafer_ even was since they had never seen anything quite like her before. For all they knew it was just a stationary building of some sort that had been constructed in the water for some unknown purpose. It was plenty large enough but far too ugly to be a palace, they surmised, so perhaps it was some kind of factory since it did look rather industrial in nature. It certainly didn't look as though it could move at all and it didn't appear to have any weapons that they could recognize as such. The three ships at the far end of the line on the starboard side of the flagship broke off and began to close in on the _Roger_. It had been decided that this solitary brig would be the first target of their impending conquest. They surrounded it in a semicircular formation and then tacked to expose the rows of broadside cannons that were affixed in their hulls. They intended to take the crew as prisoners and capture their ship if it proved feasible to do so since their king needed more able-bodied slaves and another ship wouldn't hurt either, but they would happily destroy them instead if the would-be vassals decided to put up a significant enough resistance and the aggressors figured that some force would probably be necessary in order to subdue them since they had spotted that odd tiger-shaped cannon aboard their main deck. They had also noticed the pirate-esque insignia that the captain's hat bore and so he and his crew were labeled as ruffians.

- - - - - -

"Captain, they're tackin' for a broadside!" Mullins warned.

"I can see that, you squid-brained _dolt_!" Hook replied. "Brimstone and gall, Mullins, I'm not _blind_!"

The ship in the middle of the new formation fired its broadside cannons and their slew of projectiles ripped into the starboard hull of the _Roger_, causing her to cant violently to port. Right after that there was another singular cannon shot which came from the upper deck of one of the other ships and it scored a direct hit on the _Roger's_ mainmast, damaging it severely. Then another shot was fired in the same direction and that one brought the mainsail crashing down to the deck below. The men who'd still been in the rigging at the time just barely managed to escape death by clinging to the remainders of the skyladders and half-climbing, half-falling down to the deck after the yardarm had descended.

Mullins scrambled to his feet and staggered quickly to Hook's side. "I warned you, Captain! We shoulda bailed when we had the chance! Now we're trapped!" he said reproachfully.

Hook backhanded him in the face with a force and sent him sprawling across the deck several yards away. Then they were fired upon again and two of the cannonballs ripped through the main deck, leaving gaping trails around the spot where Hook stood on both sides of him and he used his cloak as a shield against the flying shrapnel. "Jukes!" he called. "Run out and return fire! Lay Long Tom on those scugs and blow them to Kingdom Come! Do it, boy! FIRE! Set chain, grape, and angel shot in their black hearts or by Beelzebub, I'll set this hook in your young gizzard!"

Jukes did as he was told and scored a hit on the main deck of the middle ship that had initially fired upon them and managed to kill at least two of the crewmen who were in the way. But it wasn't long before the pirates were struck with another volley of cannonballs that mutilated the starboard bow of the _Roger_ beyond recognition.

"We're all headed to Davy Jones!" Mullins cried hysterically as he scuttled about the remainders of deck like a chicken with its head cut off. "Abandon ship!"

"Belay that balderdash, you jackal-hearted Jack Shalloo, or I'll have your skull for a carcass shot! Show some steel, men! Stand your ground, you lame-shank salt-horse squires, or by the Devil's drink, I'll see you all in Perdition! Fire at will, Jukes! Keep firing until there's not a scrap of iron left aboard this moldering wreck!"

"Aye, aye, Captain!" Jukes replied blithely with a wild look in his eyes. "Hahaha! I'll stitch 'em with shot and shale until there's not a breath left in me!" And with that, he began maniacally loading and firing Long Tom over and over like a machine as though he was possessed. Upon realizing that he was probably about to die very soon no matter what he did or didn't do at that point, he'd come to the conclusion that this wasn't such a terrible way to go. After all, no one lived forever, and rather than succumbing to a dismal fate like dying of some horrid disease as a feeble old man someday down the line when he was all worn out, he'd go down in history today as a brave young gunner who'd manned his cannon to the bitter end despite the obvious fact that he stood no chance of victory, and perhaps he would even become immortalized as a famous underdog for it. He'd also discovered that he much preferred the idea of being killed heroically at sea while single-handedly facing down a fleet of enemy ships like this than to be taken prisoner and be forced into slavery for the rest of his life, and so he made it the sole purpose of his fleeting existence to send as many of the enemies to Davy Jones' Locker as he possibly could before he found himself there.

The Rundoonians were quite surprised by the fierce retaliation that the pirate ship's gunner was putting forth. Even though the _Roger_ had only that sole cannon aboard her, the barrage that it was being made to dole out by Jukes was rather impressive. It almost seemed as though the heavy rain of iron that was emitting from it at the time was actually coming from a whole slew of cannons instead of just one.

"I say!" Starkey whispered to Mason, "I do believe the captain's block has taken leave of its tackle! We don't stand a chance here. We're doomed!"

"Be that as it may, it don't seem like there's much use in bellyachin' about it now!" Mason replied, and with that he went to assist Cookson in trying to put out some of the fires that were beginning to get out of control.

"Oh, begorra, Capt'n!" Smee cried through the commotion. "One more round like that'n an' we'll be scuppered for sure!"

Hook ignored him for the moment as some movement off starboard caught his eye, just beyond the attacking ships. He pulled out his spyglass to investigate it and saw that three of the other vessels which had been flanking the port side of the flagship had broken off and were now headed...towards the _Bestrafer_. "Hold hard, Smee! I believe this situation is about to get a little more interesting. Jukes! Cease fire! Desist, I tell you!"

"What...Captain?" Jukes asked incredulously, huffing and puffing as he was weary and out of breath and he was reluctant to halt his barrage now for fear that he might not be able to get himself going again.

"You heard me, boy! Stand Long Tom down, this very instant! I mean it!" Hook demanded with urgency.

Jukes complied, almost gratefully, and he collapsed against the side of the cannon and held onto it for support so that he wouldn't fall to the deck for fear that if he did that now then he might very well never rise again.

Just then, another single cannon shot was fired at the _Roger_ from one of the nearby ships and this time it was aimed directly at Captain Hook. He saw it coming just in the nick of time, though, and he managed to step back out of the way just enough that it barely missed hitting him directly. However, it obliterated a large section of the deck right in front of his feet and the force of the impact created a shockwave that sent him flying backwards several yards into the air. "ARRRGH!!!" he cried as he flew, and then he finally came to rest on the deck with a heavy thud that rendered him unconscious.

- - - - - -

On board the _Bestrafer_, Sturmsi had been watching the entire show in much the same manner as if she'd been watching a mere dramatization that was being played out on a television. At one point during her observation, one of her crewmen had come up to her and asked her if she intended to eventually lend some kind of aid to Hook's crew. She'd scoffed at him. "Why exactly would I do that?" she'd asked. "Hook can go straight to Hell for all I care," she'd said. The crewman in question was a highly telepathic creature and although he as not capable of reading Sturmsi's mind, he was more than capable of reading the minds of all the humans aboard the _Jolly Roger_ all the way from the bowels of the _Bestrafer_, and he had done so the day Sturmsi had boarded that other ship and nearly executed its captain. Subsequently, the creature had noticed the unusual affinity his captain had apparently developed for the other ship's bosun, something that rather intrigued him because he couldn't even begin to understand it. So, now that the _Jolly Roger_ was about to be destroyed, along with the beloved bosun that served aboard her, the creature reminded Captain Sturmsi about her attachment to him and asked for the reason why she was now so willing to allow him perish at the hands of the murderous invaders. Sturmsi had obligingly explained it to him. "Bosun Smee was welcomed aboard the _Bestrafer_ to become a part of my crew of his own free will and instead of accepting the offer he chose to stay with Captain Hook. It was his decision...and I respect that. Now, if his ship happens to get sunk and he happens to get dragged down with it...so be it then. As a non-member of my crew it is not my responsibility to baby-sit him. It was his own choice that led him to this fate and perhaps it is his destiny." But a short time later, she was alerted to the three vessels that were now approaching her own ship. "And just what do they think they're doing now?" she'd asked no one in particular. She'd been very lax up to this point and now she was starting to become angered by their impudence. Apparently the ignoramuses had no idea who they were dealing with here. She emitted a low growl to vocalize her displeasure. "These insolent...hobbledehoys...are going to get what's coming to them if they don't watch out. However, I will give them a fair warning." And with that, she went to sound the stormsirens.

- - - - - -

The next thing that Hook knew he was looking up at Bosun Smee, who was standing at his left side and looking down at him with a very worried expression on his face and he appeared to be trying to articulate something although no sound was coming forth. At first Hook couldn't hear anything but then Smee's voice started to come through to him, along with a bunch of other noise that made it hard for him to understand what he was saying, and it seemed as though the additional noise was coming from inside his own head, which ached terribly with a ringing sensation.

"Oh, Capt'n! My Capt'n! Speak to me, Sir, for the love of Molly Maguire!" Smee said frantically. "Are ye all right, Sir? Oh, do be sayin' somethin' now, please!"

"Smee?" Hook questioned as he started to regain his bearings. He realized that he was lying on the deck but he couldn't quite remember why. "What in the name of Mullingar Heifer is going on? Where am I?" he asked, wanting to be reassured that he was still on the _Roger_.

"Oh, Capt'n, Sir, ya've taken quite a nasty bump ta the head now, to be sure," Smee replied dolefully. "Ye was blown back'ards onta the deck by a piece o' canister shot those varney devils sent o'er to assassiminate ya with! Are ye able to be gettin' on yer feet now, Sir?"

Hook tried to do so but then a bolt of pain shot through his head as though a marlinspike had just been driven through it and it made him groan and stop trying to move for a moment. But he knew that he had to get up posthaste and so he tried again. Smee was the only object nearby so he reached up with his hand and grasped the bosun by his shoulder and allowed him to try and help him up. Smee was a much smaller man than Hook was, though, by far and he was very nearly pulled down on top of the captain for his effort, but he managed to brace himself just enough so that Hook was able to use him to pull himself up instead. But as soon as he made it to his feet the ringing sound in his ears got even louder and he staggered a bit, almost falling back down again, as he discovered that his right leg had been pelted with shrapnel and his left ankle felt like it was sprained. He gripped Smee's shoulder even tighter then, hard enough to cause him serious pain, but Smee stood fast and was able to lend enough support to help the captain stay upright for the time being. Then Hook realized that the sound that was causing his ears to ring so badly was in fact coming from somewhere outside of his head and as it became clearer to him he noticed that it sounded more like some kind of ghastly wailing that was echoing abrasively throughout the bay. "What is that...that...terrible _noise_? Ugh...do you hear that?" he asked Smee, wondering again if it was something that his concussed brain was just imagining.

"It's comin' from that devil ship," Mullins informed him, appearing before him all of a sudden, and he pointed towards the location of the _Bestrafer_.

Hook turned his head in that direction, wincing in pain as he did so, and he was beset with a wave of dizziness that dulled his vision and prevented him from seeing anything at a great distance for several moments. Once it had abated somewhat he lumbered his way toward the starboard railing to get a better look at what was going on out there, dragging Smee along with him now that the bosun had been officially reduced to a crutch. When he reached it, Hook noticed then that the sun was gone, having been covered by a thick layer of gray clouds that had completely filled the sky at some point while he'd been out of cognition.

Mullins followed them. "The ignorant bastards have done it now," he said. "Pissed off that she-devil they have and now she's gonna send 'em all to Davy Jones, and maybe us too, right along with 'em."

"But what is the point of that awful wailing?" Hook asked. "Gah! It's _assaulting_ my very mind! I can hardly hear myself think!"

"It be a warnin', Capt'n," Smee replied, wincing at the intense pressure that Hook was continuing to apply to his shoulder. "I-I've come ta believe that Capt'n Sturmsi be akin to what we Irish folk know as the Banshee. It be said that she can appear in different forms, it is, sometimes as a pretty lass and other times as a fearsome beast. The keenin' we hear now is said to foretell the imminent death of mortals - a fatal sign it is, to be sure; arisin' and afallin' like the waves of the sea, it does, and it can be so piercin' as to shatter glass. It can start out softly but then it gets louder as she nears the souls about to be taken and she mourns the coming death what's been slated to befall them. And sure now, I fear that there be quite a bunch of lads about to be gettin' scuppered right in front of our eyes!"

"Well, Bosun...as much as I am disinclined to actually believe that charming little story of yours...I must say, the description does seem to fit rather pertinently," Hook said and then he placed his claw against his forehead and closed his eyes for a moment. "I feel as though my skull is going to be split perfectly down the middle! However, there is one consolation," he added as he looked at the ships that still surrounded their own, "at least those scugs have stopped firing upon us for the time being."

"Aye, Sir," Mullins said. "They stopped doin' that just as soon as that devilish sea siren started screechin' out her sorry song of damnation, which happened shortly after you hit the deck."

Starkey came over to them then and decided to add his two cents to the conversation. "Do you think those huggermuggers are actually stupid enough to attempt an attack on the abominable abode of that demonic dominatrix? I realize they've probably never met her before as we have but still, who would be stupid enough to attack a vessel that looks like _that_, regardless of who, or what, may happen to dwell within it? Are they _mad_?"

"I don't know, Gentleman Starkey," Hook replied, "but perhaps. And I do rather hope that they will be attacking her. Fortunately for us, it does look as though they intend to and now she's drawn their attention away from the _Roger_. I dare say, this would make for a spot of good entertainment if it weren't for these abhorrent acoustics."

- - - - - -

By now, the three ships that Hook had previously seen heading towards the _Bestrafer_ had already taken up positions around her with their broadside guns pointed at her hull and now three more of them were making their way over to join them, leaving the three that still guarded the _Jolly Roger_ and one that stayed next to the flagship. At the moment, they did not seem to be deterred by the siren. Once the other three had reached their positions, there was a marked change in the quality of the siren. It seemed as if another one began to sound on top of the one that had already been going for some time now. The new one was much more bass in comparison and its pitch rose and fell at a much slower tempo than the other one did. It also caused a lot more vibrations in the surrounding structures that literally rattled every one of the wooden ships in the entire bay and made very man aboard them cringe with pain as it shook them down to the marrow in their bones. It was a final warning, one that demanded the invaders to not only cease their hostility towards the _Bestrafer_ but also to vacate the area entirely, or else they were all going to die very soon. Captain Sturmsi was no longer amused by their antics. She was now struck with an intense urge to cause massive amounts of destruction and she was only one step away from getting down to some serious business.

- - - - - -

It wasn't that the Rundoonians weren't intimidated by the _Bestrafer_ and the terrible sounds that she was making. They were. But the problem was that, at the moment, they would rather face her wrath than go back to their king empty handed and then have to face his. If it weren't for this fact then it is likely that they would have retreated by now: the _Bestrafer_ might be able to cause them death but King Zarboff would cause them a fate much worse than death if they failed him and lived to tell about it. So, they proceeded with their attack, daunted but undeterred by the blaring sirens. All six of the ships that surrounded the _Bestrafer_ began firing upon her simultaneously, fully intent on utterly destroying her if they could. They didn't even care what she was anymore; all they really cared about at that point was making her shut up. However, when the smoke from the multitude of their blasts had finally cleared, all of the Rundoonians were more than a little surprised to see that there was not so much as a scratch on the _Bestrafer_ that hadn't already been there.

- - - - - -

And that was the last straw. The sirens ceased their wailing all at once and were replaced by a gritty whirring sound that went on for several seconds, stopped for a couple, then started again, and it repeated that pattern several times in succession; the _Bestrafer's_ ignition mechanism was turning over her engine. Then there was a thunderous boom followed by low rumble that quickly escalated into a loud, grating roar that continued indefinitely and gouts of black smoke belched out of her stacks and filled the gray sky above her like an unnatural stormcloud as the beastly thing awoke from her slumber and the darkened water around her began to churn violently.

The Rundoonians were even more surprised when the entire structure that they had assumed was stationary turned about in the water until it had completed a full 180 degrees of rotation and exposed its even uglier snout to them. Then Sturmsi decided to reveal the fact that the _Bestrafer_ had a mouth. Her stem separated into two horizontally protruding structures that resembled giant mandibles and a gaping maw appeared between them in which there were great gnashing teeth that spun about each other like saw-bladed gear cogs. The Rundoonians were so frightened by what they saw now that they actually wished that they had chosen to take their chances with King Zarboff after all; it was as if they had accidentally tapped on the shoulder of Lucifer himself and he had turned around to greet them with a smile and invite them all straight into Hell. But it was too late to escape; Captain Sturmsi no longer had any intentions of letting any of them leave Kidd's Creek Bay with their lives. All she wanted at that particular moment was to cause death and destruction, and a lot of it. And all the other inhabitants of Neverland would only be able to hope that eleven ships of Rundoonians were going to be enough to satiate her flaring hunger for mayhem.

Sturmsi revved the engine of the _Bestrafer_ and her anatomy melded with the controls and she became a physical part of the ship and vice versa. She slammed herself into gear, causing the mutated hulk that she now was to lurch forward into the agitated sea before her with a loud, metallic clank that reverberated throughout the bay. She pointed her business end directly at one of the six ships that had fired upon her and she bore down upon it mercilessly. The target was completely obliterated upon impact as if it had never been there; all that was left of it afterward were scattered remnants that consisted mainly of splintered shards of wood that floated around in the frothing waves and one could ever have guessed that just a few moments prior they had been a fully-manned frigate; the _Bestrafer_ had literally eaten the ship whole along with its crew, having simultaneously chewed them up and spit them back out like a massive woodchipper reducing a small tree branch to nothing but sawdust. She passed right by another one then, scraping her portside hull against it, and she dropped her row of broadside docking clamps down onto it at just the right moment causing the frigate to be neatly decimated in several sections just before the lowered appendages gutted it lengthwise and tore it to shreds as she kept plugging forward as if nothing had happened, neither her course nor speed having been effected at all by the impact or the friction. Once she was clear of the other four ships, she tacked hard, rearing around and sending forth large waves that inundated the bay as if it were being struck by a sudden gale. They were trying to escape now, making a run for the open sea, but they stood no chance of getting away; the _Bestrafer_ was far quicker and more maneuverable despite her gargantuan size and cumbersome appearance and she had them all dispatched in short order, one way or another. Then she idled smugly amongst the strewn wreckage of the six ships that she'd just finished destroying and leered at their cohorts on the other side of the bay.

The flagship and its escort were already in the process of moving as fast as they could to a safer distance, if there even was such a thing. The _Bestrafer_ lunged forward and began to close the distance between them, quickly gaining a speed that far surpassed that of her prey.

The other three ships decided to resume firing singular shots at the _Jolly Roger_ again, intent on sinking her at least with what remained of their roundshot before they too were devoured by the raging behemoth. But the blasts of their cannons inadvertently attracted Sturmsi's fervor and she altered her course abruptly, taking hard to port, and steered herself to t-bone the center ship that was firing. As soon as she felt the satisfying crunch of it in her maw she tacked again, narrowly missing the _Roger_ and pushing the pirate ship away from her with a tidal wave that emanated from her starboard bow as she canted sharply through the frenzied sea beside them and subsequently took out the ship that had been flanking their starboard side by snapping down her starboard side docking clamps upon it as she strafed by it. Then, with a metallic screech she twirled around again and some angled protuberance that jutted from her poop section passed through the sky high above the _Roger_ before it was pointed towards the shore that wound up being behind her once she'd completed the maneuver and then she stood still. A hatch opened in the roof of her forecastle and a large, pointed object was raised up out of it by a whining hydraulic lift. Then it made loud clanking noises as it was rotated and pointed in the direction of the two ships that were still making their way to flee the bay. A deafening bark was issued from it then and less than a second later the ship that was following the apparent leader of the doomed brigade exploded and it became nothing more than a floating fireball as it was completely consumed in the roiling flames that had suddenly engulfed it. The force of the blast had also crippled the flagship nearby quite severely and although it remained afloat it could no longer sail. The weapon rotated to the left then and was fired again, this time at the final ship that had stayed near the _Roger_ and that one was promptly annihilated in the same manner as the previous one that had been shot by the _Bestrafer_.

Fortunately for Hook and his crew they had drifted far enough away by that time that they sustained no damage from the blast although the shockwave had threatened to capsize their severely crippled vessel and they managed to drop their anchor in just enough time that it narrowly prevented them from crashing into the rocky side of Hook Island.

The _Bestrafer_ began to move again and she made her way towards the last remaining vessel of the destroyed fleet, the one that was assumed to be the flagship, and she chugged through bay at a deliberately unhurried pace now that it was completely helpless and alone. The admiral on board was so frightened that he decided to surrender and, since there was absolutely nothing else that he could do at that point besides commit suicide, he ordered a white flag to be raised to signify his intent so that they might, however unlikely as it was to happen, be shown some kind of mercy. Sturmsi slowed her approach down to a crawl as she descended upon the vessel and tacked carefully so that her starboard side lightly scraped up against their portside hull. The Rundoonians screamed in terror when the docking clamps were lowered down upon them but, instead of crushing them as they expected, they were lowered just enough to secure the ship to the _Bestrafer's_ hull. Of course, the Rundoonian ship was so small compared to the _Bestrafer_ that it only took a small number of the clamps to do the job so the rest of them were raised back up again and, at the same time, another set of clamps were raised up underneath the keel of the frigate and both sets of clamps then worked together to lift the enemy craft out of the water just enough that it could be carried alongside the _Bestrafer_ without being abrasively sundered by the serrated arms that held the captured ship as she moved through the water with it attached to her. Then several rusty metal ladderwells were extended mechanically down to its main deck so that it could easily be boarded by any manner of creature that should happen to emerge from the _Bestrafer_.

Sturmsi had decided that she wanted to learn more about what was actually going on here after all, or what had been, and so she'd spared the invaders' flagship at least temporarily so that she could interrogate its crew. And she had just turned away from her control panel to make ready to board them.

But then Pennywise came up to her and whispered something in her ear that made her change her mind about that altogether. So, instead, she went right back to the control panel hit the lever that made the clamps of the _Bestrafer_ abruptly realign themselves back to their ready positions, which caused the other ship to be dropped rudely back into the water below it with a mighty splash. Then Sturmsi hit another lever that made the top row of clamps drop own upon it, making the Rundoonians' aforementioned fear a reality, and they, along with their ship, were promptly obliterated by the impact.

After that, Sturmsi just maneuvered her ship back to the same spot she'd rested in before, and shut off her engines so as to do just that again. Once all was quiet again, it would have been as though nothing at all had happened, save for the telltale debris that currently littered the bay, which was all that remained of the many ships and human bodies that had been sundered that day. And it would be that way for several more days until after the mermaids had finally finished cleaning up the mess as best as they could, abhorring the sight of it as they did, and knowing that Peter would appreciate them for it.

* * * * * *


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

Captain Hook opened the door of his cabin aboard the _Jolly Roger_ and politely motioned for Captain Sturmsi to enter before him, which she did with some mostly faked apathy at his daring attempt to be chivalrous towards her, although she was unwittingly somewhat impressed with the strikingly gallant demeanor that he displayed now after the altercation that had transpired between them before. After that incident, Sturmsi had certainly not been expecting Hook to actually have the gall to invite her onto his ship like this and with only a minor trace of chagrin she found herself being rather amused by it and had thus decided to play along with him for the time being.

The table was set elegantly for high tea and Hook even went as far as to pull a chair out for Sturmsi as though she was every bit a proper lady. Her eyes went narrow at this and with an impish smile she only bowed her head slightly as a thank you before taking the seat. Unperturbed, Hook proceeded to take his place at the opposite side of the table. Sturmsi wondered with heightened curiosity as to where this was going to lead and if Hook could actually be stupid enough to try and patronize her. Fortunately, at least, he hadn't tried to kiss her hand - that would have been a rather unpleasant experience for both of them.

Hook regarded Sturmsi for a few moments in silence while he waited for the crewman that he'd designated to be their waiter to come as he was expected to very shortly. He watched her as she sat glancing around the room, nonchalantly regarding the many object within it as if she were mentally cataloging a bunch of uninteresting items that were stockpiled in some bland warehouse. She appeared to be fully human at the moment, at least on the surface, and she bore no outward indication of the creature that she truly was, save for her eyes; although their basic configuration was relatively normal her irises seemed oddly metallic, like they were made of a smooth foil which reflected strange hues of light that seemed to be coming from nowhere around her diamond-shaped pupils. Her body was a bit stocky for a woman, her shoulders being rather broad, but overall it was quite well proportioned and her wide hips and buxom chest gave her a rather impressive hourglass figure. Other notable features about her were the coarse dark auburn hair that was cropped short and combed backwards on her head so that it was spiked out somewhat in the back and a prominent widow's peak in the front and center with short feathery bangs parted to both sides of it, as well as a pale complexion that had a slight yellow tinge and a face that looked a bit chiseled and gaunt. She was strangely beautiful, in a very odd sort of way, and Hook couldn't help but notice that; if he didn't know better he might have even found himself being somewhat attracted to her, if only because it had been so long since he'd actually been with a woman and he was nonetheless still a man, not to mention a sailor. But, of course, he knew very well that Sturmsi was not a real woman by any stretch of the imagination and thus her deceptively feminine facade instilled within him a feeling of revulsion rather than desire and it caused him to shudder inwardly; it was even worse than when he looked at the mermaids and other such females of non-human species that were common in Neverland and he actually had to suppress the urge to wrinkle his nose at the abomination that now sat right before him.

Hook was just beginning to wonder where the lollygagging lummox was that he was waiting for when, just then, as if on cue, there was a knock at the door that was accompanied by voice on the other side of it that was familiar to both of the cabin's occupants, "Bosun Smee reportin' fer duty, Sir, with yer vittles as ya ordered, Capt'n, to be sure."

"Come in, Bosun," Hook barked. He signed with some relief at the fact that he hadn't had to get up and go fetch him when Smee entered the cabin somewhat apprehensively, carefully pushing in the cart of food and drinks that he'd been told to bring the captain and his guest.

"Aye, aye, Sir!" Smee responded with some cheer that was faked but not noticeably so as he entered the room and then began dutifully serving the meal just as he'd been instructed to.

"Smee!" Sturmsi exclaimed jovially and her previously dull expression lit up markedly with his presence as her shimmering eyes focused on him in a friendly manner. "How good of you to join us!" This was the first time that she had seen him since her return to the _Roger_ and she had been wondering where he was. She'd surmised that he'd been below deck attending to some bosunly duties down there and she was quite happy to see that Hook had chosen him to be their server for this little tea party. However, regardless of Hook's intentions, Sturmsi intended to have Smee sit down with them for a while so that she could actually converse with him for once, something that she was a lot more interested in doing at the moment than conversing with Hook.

"G-Good afternoon, Capt'n Sturmsi, Ma'am" Smee replied with a tinge of fear in his voice that he tried really hard to hide (without much success) and he paused briefly to give her a courteous bow before resuming his task at hand.

"Thank you, Boson Smee," Sturmsi purred smoothly when Smee poured her some tea and she bowed her head to him to convey her gratitude in much the same way that an Asian person might do. She had, in fact, spent a good deal of time around the Oriental regions and, having developed a fondness of their culture, she had subsequently picked up a few of their habits in the bargain.

Much of Smee's fear was abated by the soft tone that Sturmsi used with him. "Sure now, and you're quite welcome, Ma'am," he replied as he respectfully mimicked her bow in return. Then he went and did the same for Hook after pouring his tea, who, of course, did not reciprocate the gesture, something that Smee had in no way expected him to do. But Sturmsi noted it with a flare of chagrin and her eyes narrowed for a moment at Hook's blatant indifference towards his obliging amanuenses. After that, Smee placed the trays of dried venison, smoked fish, and bread upon the table along with the teapot and a bottle of wine. Now that the serving cart was empty he turned back to Hook for further instruction. "Might there be anythin' else ye desire at the moment, Capt'n Hook, Sir?" he asked.

"No, Smee. That will be all for the time being. You may return to your regular duties until I call for you again," Hook informed him. He was eager for Smee to leave so that he could begin speaking with Sturmsi in private.

"Aye, Sir," Smee responded and he turned and began pushing the cart towards the door of the cabin as he fully intended to comply with Hook's order and make a prompt exit.

But Sturmsi was not about to let Hook just shoo him away like that. "Uh, excuse me, Bosun Smee," she called hastily, halting him in his tracks with a polite expression on her face and he shrank away from her a bit in surprise. "I realize that you must have a lot of important duties to attend to, but...I would be very much obliged if you could sit down with us for a spell and have some tea..." then she switched her gaze to Hook and stared at him intently as her expression changed quite abruptly to one of thinly veiled contempt, "IF Captain Hook would be so kind as to permit it, of course."

"Uhh...w-well, uh...I-I, uh..." Smee attempted, not sure of how he should respond to that request and so he looked to Hook for guidance.

Hook flinched in response and stifled a growl as he stared at both of them with a strained look on his face. He hadn't anticipated this and he thought that the last thing he wanted was for Smee to actually sit down at the table with them but then he realized that wasn't quite true. The last thing he wanted at the moment was to put Sturmsi off this early in the game. So, with a sigh of resignation he motioned for Smee to comply with Sturmsi's wish and while gritting his teeth he said, "Very well. Sit down, Mr. Smee, and pour yourself a cup of tea."

"Uh...aye, Sir," Smee replied, a bit confused about the situation but also glad for actually being allowed to stay. He knew that Hook didn't want this and that fact alone made him want to leave but he was still quite afraid of Sturmsi, almost as much as he was afraid of Hook, and he was willing to do almost anything to keep her from getting angry again. He sensed the precariousness of the situation by the tension in the air as he carefully sat down in a chair at the side of the table on Hook's left and Sturmsi's right and he decided that it would behoove of him to keep quiet as much as possible so as not to provoke any unwanted attention from either of the formidable captains that he was now stationed between. He poured himself a cup of tea then and sipped it gingerly as he grasped the teacup in both of his small, bony, calloused hands and silently prayed that he wouldn't get clumsy as he often did and spill it.

Sturmsi noticed that Hook was at a loss for words at the moment and so she took the opportunity to try and start a conversation with Smee. "So, Mr. Smee...tell me a bit about yourself, would you? I'm curious to know more about your life."

Smee swallowed the swig of tea that he'd just taken a little too hard and barely avoided choking on it. He had not expected to be addressed in that sort of manner, as though he was actually interesting enough to warrant the attention. "Uhh...w-well, uh, i-is there anythin' in particular that you'd be wantin' ta know, Ma'am?" he asked cautiously.

"Hmm..." Sturmsi pondered as she leaned back in her chair and stared at the ceiling for a moment. "Ah, I know," she said, leaning forward again. "How did you become a pirate?" she asked as she cinched both of her hands together in a unified fist on the table before her and looked at Smee intently, eagerly awaiting his response.

"Well now," Smee began, setting his teacup down, as he tried to figure out where to start, "that's...a bit of a long story, it is."

"Do tell. I really would like to know," Sturmsi insisted.

Smee then began telling her the rather complicated story in the clearest way that he could manage, beginning with the day that he'd first left his homeland as a young lad to venture forth on the briny, explaining how he'd met and come to be employed by Captain Hook, and ending with their acquisition of the _Jolly Roger_. He paused every so often to scratch his head as he painstakingly recalled the memories and put them into words as comprehensively as he was able to.

Hook, meanwhile, occupied himself with the wine. He used his claw to remove the cork by impaling it and yanking it outwards to pop the seal and displace it from the bottle then he picked it off the point of the prosthesis with his fingers and set it aside. He poured himself a generous glass of the burgundy liquid that was made from fermented Neverberry juice and spiked with a generous amount of homemade brandy, which he drank rather quickly, and then he poured another that he sipped at a more subdued pace while Smee finished telling his elaborate and somewhat embellished version of his life story. Hook noted, however, that he had at least gotten most of the significant details right, as far as he knew, and that amazed him. He also wondered incredulously at the steadfast attention that Sturmsi gave him the entire time, especially when he realized that it did appear to be genuine interest that she was showing rather than plain courtesy. It's not like the story was all that interesting, at least not to him.

"...and, well, uh, that be about it, me thinks," Smee said, wrapping it up. "Be apologizin', I do, if anythin's a mite outa sorts there, Ma'am, but I do hope 'twas well enough to be answerin' yer question, uh, satisfactory-like, to be sure."

"Yes," Sturmsi replied, nodding her head in approval. She had been sitting forward, listening with her head cocked in rapt attention while she deciphered the gist of the story through Smee's thick and sometimes confusing (but nonetheless charming) old Irish seaman's dialect. She had, indeed, found it quite interesting and now that it was finished she eased back into her chair in a less studious posture. "That was a very interesting story, Mr. Smee. I appreciate you sharing it," she assured, tapping the table in front of her with the tip of her index finger a couple of times for emphasis. She understood that speaking at lengths was not one of Smee's strong points and she appreciated his honest effort to please her by spicing up the story with a few really cute, albeit obvious, embellishments. Then she looked at Hook who was leaning back in his chair with his half-empty wineglass in a posture that implied boredom. He would almost have looked to be drowsy except for the fact that his sharp blue eyes were fully alert and drawn to every movement that was made before him, no matter how slight it was. "Do you have anything to add, Captain Hook?" Sturmsi asked then, although it was more of a way of granting him permission to speak than it was a real question.

Hook cleared his throat and sat up in his chair as he set his wine glass down and then he placed his hands together on the table on front of him before speaking. "I do say, that was quite an adequate summary of the long, illustrious, and somewhat sordid history of Bosun Smee's pirating career. Speaking of which, that is something I am looking forward to the further practice of, if he would be so kind as to _continue_ it. I do very much appreciate your _work_, Bosun. It is very important to me and I do _require_ it to be completed on a daily basis," he said, looking at Smee with derision as he tried to convey his intense desire for him to voluntarily take his leave now without making it too obvious to Sturmsi that it was a prod, an endeavor that was only halfway successful - Smee got the drift but then so did Sturmsi just as well, and although it irritated her she decided not to press the issue and she waited quietly for Smee's reaction. She was also a little amused by the fact that Hook had actually thought that he was capable of sneaking something past her like that while simultaneously expecting Smee to get it and she half expected it to go right over Smee's head in the bargain.

But during his career Smee had become attuned to Hook well enough, especially after their arduous stay together in Neverland thus far, that he was able to take the hint. "Oi, thanky, Capt'n Hook, and you're quite welcome now, I'm sure," he said hastily before turning to Sturmsi. "Eh, be there anythin' else that ya might be wantin' ta know from me, Ma'am?" he asked politely, hoping the answer would be negative so that he would no longer be required to remain in the presence of his growingly anxious captain.

Sturmsi cocked her head and looked at Smee for a few moments with a thoughtful expression, honestly trying to make sure that there wasn't anything else that she really wanted to ask him at the moment while simultaneously taking some perverse pleasure in the obvious discomfort that she knew Hook was experiencing by not being able to order Smee out of the room in her presence, let alone being able to pick him up and physically throw him out of it as she knew he was itching to do. Finally, she decided to relent. "No, Mr. Smee, not at the moment. Nothing in particular comes to mind, anyway."

"Oh, well then, I should be gettin' back ta me duties now then, to be sure. There do be a wee bit o' things what needin' ta be finished up afore I can be callin' it a day," Smee said as he stood up from the table and stepped away from the chair he'd been sitting in. Then he turned back around quickly and pushed the chair in under the table, having almost forgotten to do so, and he flashed Hook an apologetic glance as he did it.

Surprisingly, Hook's gaze had softened quite a bit at his bosun's unexpectedly hasty compliance with his subtly given order to vacate the scene as well as his equally unexpected tact in doing so, something that Hook felt almost as grateful for as the simple fact that the lummox was finally leaving.

Smee grabbed the handle of the food cart and pulled it behind him as made his way towards the exit but then he paused a few feet away from Sturmsi. "Sure now, Capt'n Sturmsi, Ma'am, I do be thankin' ya fer bein' so kind as to've tolerated me in yer company," he told her quietly as he bowed to her again with sincere appreciation and then, before she had the chance to reply, he quickly resumed his progress towards the door. Upon reaching it he pushed it open and, after finagling the cart through the threshold before him, he stepped out of Hook's cabin.

"Bosun Smee!" Hook called after him loudly just as he was about to close the door behind him.

Smee was jolted by his captain's harsh-sounding tone and he halted the progress of the closing door just before it was latched and then he pushed it open again just enough that he could peer back inside to face Hook. He was afraid that he'd forgotten something or done something wrong. "Uh, aye, Sir?" he asked with trepidation.

"You may forego the remainder of your duties for the rest of the evening," Hook informed him flatly.

"Eh, um, what now, Sir?" Smee questioned with a puzzled look on his face.

When Hook saw that Smee was genuinely confused by his statement he sighed before rewording it for added clarity. "I'm giving you the rest of the night off. Get some rest, Bosun. I'll have Cookson clear the table when we're finished," he told him. "Good night," he snapped then, as an afterthought.

"Oh, uh, aye, Sir!" Smee replied happily when he finally got the point and then he closed the door and made a hasty retreat to return the food cart to the galley and to go ahead and finish up a few other things that he didn't want to leave undone before actually retiring to his hammock down in the ship's fo'c'sle.

Hook sighed with great relief and eased back into his chair as he noticed the subtle smile of approval that Sturmsi was giving him just then and he silently commended himself on the smart move he'd just made - he'd managed to use Smee to break some of the ice between himself and the other captain while keeping the bosun in his place and then he'd managed to dismiss him while preventing the demoness from getting irate about it by openly granting him an unexpected reward for his obedience that would also keep him from being a further distraction - a shrewd accomplishment that he felt rather proud of at the moment, and he smiled back at her to convey a sense of reticent camaraderie as he truly hoped that this little social he was having would be the beginning of the end of her hostility towards him. He felt that if he continued to play his cards right then it very well could be and that alone would be well worth the effort. However, he also thought that it could potentially lead to the actual alliance that he ultimately wanted to gain with Sturmsi - and what an immeasurably valuable ally she had the potential to be. He also understood with some foreboding that if he failed to play his cards correctly then the results could be quite disastrous, and so he proceeded with a fair degree of caution. "Would you care for some wine, Captain?" he offered politely, holding up the bottle with his hand in a friendly gesture.

(_Continued..._)


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

Sturmsi regarded Hook for a moment silently, trying to figure out his game. She had found that his mind was nowhere near as easy to read as was Smee's. Indeed, the little Irishman's mind was very simple, albeit rather odd, and it was much like an open book to her although the text was somewhat garbled in many places. Hook's mind, on the other hand, was quite clear and concise on the surface but then it got very shady the deeper she went, and then the rest of it seemed to be completely off limits to her probing. She wasn't fully telepathic, more like slightly empathic and highly intuitive, and Hook was so secretive and complex that she could only guess at what he might actually be thinking or feeling at any given moment. And so she had to wonder, what exactly was the point of all this, anyway? What exactly did he want from her, or from anyone else for that matter? Was he really trying to make friends with her, or what? And if so, then to what end? After all, nothing was ever given for free. Not really. She pondered the questions with growing curiosity and, as the potential answers did not come with any certainty, she found that she was actually enjoying the intellectual challenge that Hook was providing for her. Perhaps she was too easily entertained by it since she had been plagued with boredom for so long, but she nonetheless found herself welcoming this unexpected and exceedingly unpredictable diversion.

"Sure. Why not?" Sturmsi replied, suddenly getting up from her seat and snatching an empty wineglass from the table. Then she walked briskly right over to Hook and held the glass outwards to him so that he could fill it for her without even having to stand up.

The swift maneuver startled him enough to make him tense up a little as she approached, and Sturmsi just barely managed to fully suppress a laugh and only some of the evil grin that came in its stead when Hook actually shrank back from her a bit when she stopped with the wineglass suspended directly in front of him. She allowed him to fill it for her, which he did just a little shakily.

As soon as Hook held the bottle safely upright again, Sturmsi did a smooth about-face and slid coyly back into her seat at the other side of the table. As she repositioned herself in the chair, she looked at him in a way that made Hook think about a venomous snake that has recoiled after having just landed a fatal strike on its enemy...or prey...that lie helplessly before it.

Sturmsi relished the newly disconcerted expression on Hook's face and decided to dishevel his pride just a tad further. She raised her wineglass and sniffed it briefly, noting that the concoction in it was an exceptionally strong port that was pretty close to one hundred proof, then she downed more than half of it and swallowed it quickly and quietly without so much as a flinch as though it were nothing but pure, fresh water, purposefully reminding Hook of her not-so-dainty physiology as her expression became purely stoic.

Hook corrected his posture and cleared his throat as he regained his composure with a new sense of purpose. Sturmsi's oh-so-subtle display of the mettle and prowess that was simply innate to her ilk had given him a much-needed wake-up call. He now fully realized and accepted the fact that no matter how far he managed to get with her, Sturmsi would always, by default, have the upper hand on him simply because of her unmortal condition, and he would do well to never forget that. He was also reminded of the deafening sirens that were sounded from her ship that day not very long ago, just before she'd completely annihilated the entire armada of seafaring aggressors that had come to take over Neverland for their king, after they'd proven to be stupid enough to fire upon her after his own ship had been crippled and nearly destroyed by them. Those shuddersome sirens were a fair enough warning of the impending doom that was to be doled out the very moment that they went unheeded. And it was almost as if he could hear them again right now. A new realization came to him then: that ship, der _Bestrafer_, was a part of her, in a literal sense. It was a physical manifestation of her psyche in much the same way as what Neverland was to Peter Pan, except that her ship was infinitely more sinister than that simpleton boy's make-believe island and all of its denizens combined. Manifestations they were, of his, all of those apparitions that came from or otherwise belonged in this paltry fairytale world, even that infamous Jack O'Lantern character, whom had very nearly brought death to everyone in, on, and around the entire atoll, including himself. Then another thought that was even stranger to him occurred just then: the return of the Rake and his dead brother, Captain Patch...had that really even been the actual spirit of his brother as he'd assumed? If so, then how on earth had his cursed treasure chest wound up in Neverland, of all places? Hook had never actually thought about that before. What if the whole thing had been nothing more than a subconscious projection of Pan's own imagination, like everything else here apparently was? But then how would that boy have known enough about him to...? What if...what if his own ship...and crew...and...?

Hook stopped himself right there, shaking his head to derail the train of runaway thoughts that was threatening to haul away his sanity, to carry it right over the edge into the abyss of madness. He would NOT go there. No. He REFUSED. So he returned his attention to Sturmsi, a being which sat before him in a corporeal form that seemed real enough to him at the moment; real enough to believe in, however much that he wished he didn't have to. Peter Pan feared no one in Neverland, not even him, and Hook supposed that was the main reason why he hated the boy so much, because he had thus far failed to instill a satisfactory level of fear in him no matter what he did or how hard he tried. But Peter Pan was afraid of Sturmsi. Oh yes, the boy had openly admitted it to him, of all people, so therefore it had to be true. But what did that mean, exactly? And where in Perdition where all of these strange ideas coming from? Hook found himself being unsure that he ever wanted to learn the true answers to any of those questions, and he forced himself to let them go before he became completely unraveled.

Sturmsi sensed the turmoil in Hook's mind although she couldn't tell exactly what was causing it. All she knew was that there was some kind of chain reaction going off in his brain and he was becoming increasingly distressed by it until he finally just pulled the plug on it and let it die before it caused him to have a mental breakdown. Sturmsi pondered it deeply and began to wonder if somehow her mere presence might have instigated it without her intention, and, in any case, where it might have led him if he'd let it continue. Was it possible that Hook was in the process of, or at least had been close to beginning the process of, coming to realize the truth about his own nature and that of the universe in which he dwelled? Was he unconsciously drawing things from her own mind without her even realizing it? Perhaps, and if so, then she had underestimated him quite considerably. With that realization, Sturmsi looked at Hook again with a new level of respect that she hadn't seen fit to give him before, but now suddenly did. And her instincts warned her to be careful around him, for there was a great deal about him that she was currently unaware of.

Hook had a sneaking suspicion that Sturmsi was probing his mind and that she might have, however inadvertently, triggered the series of strange thoughts to occur in his mind. She was a very dangerous creature, indeed, whether she meant to be or not. She was a shapeshifer in every sense of the word, a perfectly dual-natured, binary entity that could easily go from the pleasant looking woman-thing that she was now to the most horrid of beasts in the mere blink of an eye, given the right (or wrong) provocation. He knew that he would never be able to match her physical prowess but mentally...he simply refused to let her dominate him in that arena. He decided to get back down to earth then, as it were, and try probing her softer side to get a better understanding of her more genial nature, assuming that it wasn't just a facade. "I'd like to ask you something, Captain Sturmsi" he said.

Sturmsi cocked her head quizzically as she tried to guess at what the question might be. It was obvious that Hook was going to try probing her for something that he thought might give him some kind of leverage. But since nothing like that actually existed, as far as she knew, she could only make wild guesses as to what it was he that wanted to know just then, and she half-expected him to ask about her origin. "Alright. Go ahead," she replied calmly, masking her interest with feigned indifference.

"I want to ask you...about your..._ahem_, fascination, as it were, with Mr. Smee," said Hook.

Sturmsi blinked her eyes rapidly several times as she reeled in confusion for a moment, and her lips parted in surprise. That was not even remotely what she'd been expecting him to ask, and she was quite taken aback by the sudden diversion that Hook had just blindsided her with. But she quickly regained her composure and smiled at Hook with great amusement as though he had just tickled her in some secret soft spot. "Oh?" she replied and she actually laughed a little. "What about it?" Hook wasn't fazed by her laughter in the slightest and he continued regarding her with dead seriousness. "Look, I know that you're an intelligent person. I am too. And I can't help but be curious about...whatever it is exactly...that you see in him...that I apparently do not."

Sturmsi's smile faded as she became serious again as well. "Well...it is a bit hard to explain," she replied, genuinely unsure of herself in that moment as she pondered Hook's question. It actually was a good question, she thought. Now that she thought about it. "Maybe he's not quite as stupid as you believe," she hazarded, realizing that while the argument was essentially pointless, it did offer her the potential opportunity to dishevel, or at least annoy, the big surly man in front of her, and she found that prospect rather appealing right now.

"Ou contraire," Hook said confidently. "Smee isn't just stupid by normal standards, he's _completely_ brainless. He has not even the faintest _suspicion_ of a cerebral cortex."

"Actually, I think you're wrong about that," Sturmsi insisted vehemently. "I think his main problem is more likely just a lack of education and his subsequent lack of vocabulary, which isn't necessarily his fault. Come now, Captain, do you really think it's his fault that he wasn't lucky enough to be born into a wealthy family that cared enough about him to put him through college and could afford to do so like you were? After all, men are what their mothers have made them, correct?"

Hook started and his eyes narrowed at Sturmsi's reference to the quotation by Ralph Waldo Emerson that he himself had often recited aloud when thinking about his own mother...something that he hadn't done in a while, the last time being well before Sturmsi had ever come to Neverland. She was surely telepathic, he thought. Or maybe she was some kind of oracle with the power to see past events. Perhaps she even had a crystal ball somewhere in her lair on the _Bestrafer_ that showed her things that she had no business knowing. That wouldn't surprise him at all at this point, he thought huffily. "Aye...I won't deny that. But lack of education? Come now. Do you really believe that Smee's exceptional level of hebetude is merely the result of denied opportunity? Pshaw! Even if he was given ample opportunity by the finest teachers in the world, Smee does not possess the basic aptitude that is required to even begin to become educated! By Zeus, you give him a compliment and he thinks you've insulted him; you insult him and he takes it as a compliment! His mind, what little of it there is, works completely...backwards! If you can call that working. It's as though his wires are crossed the wrong way, if you get my drift," Hook said, pointing his index finger towards his temple and moving it in a circular motion to imply insanity. "And he should know well enough by now that his loyalty to me is the only thing that keeps him alive on my ship, but he's so damn stupid that he doesn't seem to realize even that!"

"Which goes further to prove that his loyalty his genuine, and that he's not faking it just to get on your good side. Not that there is such a thing," said Sturmsi as she smirked a bit for a moment at the irony in that, but then it quickly faltered as her expression went serious again. "It's not something to take for granted, in my opinion. Stupid or no, I wish I had someone like that on _my_ side." And that was true. Though she would never fully admit it to anyone, not even herself, she was lonely. None of the creatures that served as crewmembers on her ship cared for her at all, even the ones that she tried to be nice to. No, they all hated her, resented her. And rightfully so. She was not exactly easy to get along with, even when she tried to be, though usually that was only pretend on her part. A poorly disguised facade. And she was conceited enough that she desired a worshiper, albeit just one would suffice. She knew she wasn't a goddess, not quite, but she still desired to be treated like one anyway, by someone. Anyone, at this point. And this flaw created a bigger weakness in her than she would probably ever fully realize, for though she knew a lot of things, she knew not the whole truth about everything, nor even herself. So instead, she pretended that her desire to obtain a loyal follower was for practical reasons, rather than emotion ones.

"_Hmph_. He's a doolally tap codger of the first order, if I ever did see one. And Mr. Smee is, by far, the worst example of which I've ever encountered," insisted Hook. And he meant it.

"Well, that doesn't surprise me," Sturmsi replied matter-of-factly, as if there was an extremely obvious point that was flying right over Hook's head and he had to be blind not to see it. And that is exactly how she felt about it.

"It..._doesn't_?" Hook questioned, not having the faintest clue as to what it could be that she was trying to get at.

"Nope," Sturmsi replied, giving him a slow negative nod for emphasis and she balked at elaborating any further for the moment, waiting to see if Hook would catch her drift before she attempted what she hoped would be a figurative sucker-punch on him.

Hook shook his head slowly in frustrated confusion as though he thought that Sturmsi had just completely lost her mind as well. "I don't get it," he said finally, throwing his hands up into the air. "How can you possibly be _not_ surprised by it?"

Sturmsi shook her head in a condescending manner, silently conveying the strong contempt that she held for Hook now that they were at the very root of its source. For the most part, he was a highly intelligent, sharp-witted fellow and very shrewd, to the point that one had to respect him for it, she had to admit that, and even a little charming to some extent, but in certain cases he was exceptionally dense, a lot more so even than poor, little-old Smee was. This was definitely one of those times where it was as though Hook could not see past the end of his own nose simply because he refused to do so, and Sturmsi actually felt like just hauling off and slapping him for it right then and there. She had to smile for a moment when she thought of how Hook might react to that sudden movement but it faded quickly as she prepared to launch a scathing diatribe that she could only hope Hook would take seriously. Because if not, then she might very well wind up killing him after all. And she actually found, at this point, that she hoped it would not come to that. "Doolally tap, as you call it...yes, that is quite an accurate description for your little bogtrotting bosun. Bravo, Captain, you've hit the nail right on the head. As you should know, that charming term literally means to be showing signs of mental distress, as British soldiers often do when they're stationed at the transit camp in Deolali, India for extended periods of time, hence the origin of the phrase. And it doesn't surprise me that Smee should have that kind of affliction because I understand much of what he's been put through. And, I tell you what...it makes me a little angry. Especially after the way I've seen you treat him. You see, he knows that he's not smart and he knows that you are. Or, at least he thinks you are. He looks up to you; he idolizes you; hell, he practically _worships_ you." Sturmsi paused for a moment as she was struck with a pang of jealousy just then. She was all too aware of the fact that no one had ever harbored that level of devotion for her and most likely never would. Her own crewmen only followed her because they were forced to, and everyone else regarded her as a freak, not that she could hold that against them. She was a freak, she couldn't deny that, not that she even desired to. Most of the time it didn't bother her at all, but every now and then it did make her feel kind of sad. But not wanting to give Hook the chance to edge in until she was finished, she continued speaking. "You treat him like dirt, not that it deters him. You often punish him for doing exactly what you've told him to do and for various mishaps that are in no way his fault as well as for the things that actually are his fault. So, it really is no wonder why he's so screwed up. You've abused him so often that he's become used to it; he's come to expect it, and, to be quite honest, I think he's actually come to enjoy it somewhat, which is, sadly, a good thing for him because otherwise there mightn't be anything left to prevent him from losing his will to live. Your punishments, therefore, fail to work as intended because they fail to serve as an actual deterrent to anything, so he rarely ever learns from any of his mistakes. Furthermore, you constantly speak to him using words you know damn well he doesn't understand and, more often than not, instead of actually trying teach him their meanings, you simply punishment him all the more for not already knowing them, as if that's actually going to change anything. What does that accomplish? It accomplishes nothing! You have long held him in a position where he's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't, even more so than the rest of your similarly degenerated crew. So, what exactly do you expect? Tell me!" And with that she pounded one of her fists down onto the table, jarring it hard enough cause every object upon it to rattle quite abruptly, which further conveyed her ire as if it wasn't already quite apparent enough.

Hook had recoiled in his chair somewhat as Sturmsi delivered that scornful lecture and it took him several moments to even begin a response after she was finished. He wanted to ask her just how in Perdition it was that she knew so much about his interactions with his crew, but he decided that he didn't want to press her about that. Not yet, anyway. Actually, what he really wanted to do right then was to waltz over to her and calmly plunge his anchor about three fathoms deep into her cold, black heart, assuming she even had one at all. But, of course, he knew better than that. He thought about her question instead. What did he expect of his crew, anyway? "I'll tell you what I expect," he told her as he straightened himself in his chair, "I _expect_ all of my men to be loyal and obedient, just as any ship's captain would, pirate or no, and I expect them to have a level of competence above that of a common nematode," he said earnestly. "But then, I suppose, that is asking a bit too much," he added sarcastically, "especially by your apparently substandard method of determining the fitness of a seaman."

Sturmsi just laughed at that, and quite heartily, too. My, he really did have some balls, didn't he? "By Calypso, Hook," she said when her laughter finally began to subside, though she kept smiling, "I'll have you know that you are conducing to shoal waters and a lee shore, and I can't help but be amazed by how exceptionally obtuse that such a man of your breed can be."

That insult cut Hook deeper than he wanted to admit to himself. Finally, he got defensive. "Ob-ob..._tuse_?? Ha! That retort has cut me to the quick," he replied with venomous sarcasm as he rolled his eyes. "Do you really think that all of the innumerable shortcomings of that scurvy, louse-ridden, barnacle-backed bluejacket are all MY fault?" he asked sternly, and he bolted forward in his chair and scowled at Sturmsi as he awaited her answer to that. "You can't _possibly_!"

"No, not entirely...but partially, yes," she replied. "Correction, make that _largely_." Sturmsi sighed before continuing. "You know very well that poor little bastard would follow you right through the gates of Perdition if you lead him there. And that's exactly what you're going to wind up doing in the end. But that's besides the point. You want to know what you're problem really is? You're not stupid, Hook. You're just a big sourpuss."

Hook blinked at her incredulously. "_Sourpuss_??" he hissed.

"That's right. A sour...PUSS," she replied, putting special emphasis on the last syllable as if to imply an alternate and even less flattering meaning of the term.

"Why...how _dare_ you! You...hellacious _harridan_!" Hook bellowed hatefully and his hook twitched repetitiously as though his hate was being channeled right through it in waves and it subsequently carved several deep scratches into the surface of the table upon which it sat. Oh, how he wanted to just KILL her right then.

Sturmsi grinned widely, taking no offense at the attempted insult, and she bared her currently innocuous set of teeth at Hook when she saw that he had indeed gotten her drift and looked as though he was about to explode; he was shaking and his face was turning red right along with his eyes. He even had the trademark red dots in his pupils now and he did, in fact, look as though he was about to jump right out of his seat and rush at her despite his own better judgment. Oddly enough, it made Sturmsi feel somewhat giddy, a very rare sensation for her that she hadn't felt in a very long time. Hook was, indeed, a very dangerous man, surprisingly sensitive and easily offended, and quite powerful for a human. If it weren't for her own relatively impervious nature Sturmsi knew very well that she would surely be dead by now and that knowledge excited her in a strange way that she wasn't used to. She found herself actually hoping that he would snap and try to attack her right then just so that she would have an excuse to make violent physical contact with him. She wouldn't kill him, though, at least she would try not to. She would just send him flying into the back wall of his cabin hard enough to give his backside a good bruising and then flex her muscles a little more by swatting the table aside so that there would be nothing between them and she surmised that would be more than enough to put him back in his place. She wouldn't even need to bother shifting her form, either, in fact she would deliberately stay just the way she was because she knew it would cause even more damage to his ego that way, and that's what she really wanted most of all. But Hook was restraining himself quite well and Sturmsi realized that he wasn't going to do it. He really wanted to, terribly so, but by an impressive feat of willpower he was managing to hold himself back. And, as the seconds wore on, he was beginning to calm himself down. When the red lights finally went out of his eyes and he stopped shaking Sturmsi decided that it was time to get right down to the point with him, once and for all, and she wiped the wolfish grin from her face and replaced it with an expression of dead seriousness. "Let me tell you a little secret, Hook," she said calmly. "Believe it or not, there are actually a fair number of sea captains out there, including pirate ones, who practice at least some basic form of camaraderie with their crewmen from time to time, regardless of however cretinous they may happen to be."

"Camaraderie," Hook repeated flatly.

"Yes. Cam-a-rad-er-ie," Sturmsi said, deliberately pausing between the syllables as if she were speaking to a slow person. "Despite your usually impressive vocabulary I wouldn't be at all surprised if that's something you've never heard of before. And I think you'd be surprised to learn how far it can go to boost morale, prevent desertions, and stave off mutinies." "But they're IDIOTS!" Hook bellowed. "By the white cliffs of Dover, Sturmsi, how in the name of Mullingar Heifer do you expect me to practice any semblance of...camaraderie...with that pack of uneducated, illiterate, inept, insolent, mollycoddled, mush-faking, mephistophelean PIRATES that dare to call themselves my crew??"

"Good grief," Sturmsi replied patiently. "They are pirates, not parishioners! And since when do you have to be a freaking rocket scientist to be a pirate? If you wanted to be surrounded by a bunch of patronizing, pedantic parvenus all the time then maybe you should have become a priest instead of a pirate. Maybe you should have chosen clergy over captaincy! You're the only pirate captain I've ever met with all the pretensions of a perverted pope! It's downright laughable, I tell you! Ha-ha-ha!"

"_Pshaw_!" Hook spat. "Every one of those contemptible curs, with _perhaps_ the exception of Smee, longs to stab me right in the back, literally, at the very moment that I should happen to let down my guard. And, correct me if I'm wrong, but in order to have any measure of what you consider camaraderie with someone you must first be able to hold a conversation with him, and talking to Smee is no different than talking to a piece of driftwood. Believe me, I've tried!"

"Look...don't get me wrong here...I'm not saying you should go soft on them," Sturmsi explained. "I understand the fact that they are pirates, Smee as well, and as their captain you must maintain a healthy level of fear in them and keep them in their place by regularly insulting them, making threats upon their lives, and lashing them whenever they get out of line, which in some cases is probably just about every day. Believe me, I know how it is. But I think you go overboard to the point of being counterproductive. That's what I'm trying to get through to you here. You really have no idea just how lucky you are. You think your men are bad? Hah! You should see MY crew! My malefic menagerie of scabrous teufelhunden makes every one of your pack of puerile pups look like perfectly-mannered paladins of pure righteousness! You have to understand that, unlike you, I have deliberately picked out the most abominable embodiments of anathema that even the decadent darkness in your malicious mind pales to whitewash in comparison to. You don't even want to know what some of those things are capable of, let alone what they have actually done. I am their keeper, their warden, and they serve aboard der _Bestrafer_ in a state of what you might call purgatory, for it is a jail where they will stay in lockdown 'til kingdom come. It's my job to collect them, you see. I prowl through the timeless expanses of dead oceans that exist between what you know as reality in that cantankerous prison-hulk, hunting those that threaten to upset the balance and pressing them into my crew so that the nauseating noumenons might serve some semblance of a useful purpose while we await the apocalypse. Either that or I destroy them, whichever happens to strike my fancy at the moment, rather than leave them to fester in the fabric of creation and erode it against the will of the primary creator. You, on the other hand..._huh_! That's the very last thing you want. So, if your men are really so detestable as you claim, then why did you let them put in with you in the first place? And why do you let them continue to crew on your vessel? I have to wonder why you bother to keep them around if you really despise them so much...could it be that their kind are the only ones who are desperate enough to put up with you and your annoying mood swings and continue through your pointless fits of mindless rage to maintain your ship? Perhaps you know, deep down, that if they actually woke up one day as smart as you pretend to wish they were then you'd be up the proverbial creek without a paddle within a fortnight! Think about it. Do you really think it's just a coincidence that the only person who's ever displayed any true measure of loyalty to you also just so happens to be the stupidest man you've ever met in your entire life?" And with that, Sturmsi fell into her chair, threw her head back, and clutched her midsection as she let out a long, hard laugh. "You just don't get it..." she spoke between the outburst of guffaws, "he HAS to be stupid! Because...if he actually possessed...any iota of intelligence...then he would have let me scupper you right proper when he was given the chance to watch you die...instead of risking his own hide to protect the insidious ingrate that he still has the gall to consider his captain!"

Hook couldn't think of anything at all to say just then. He wondered what in blazes he had been thinking when he'd started this charade. Had he actually thought that he was going to get anything out of it? "What exactly is the point of this discussion anyway?" he wondered aloud.

"Excuse me? You're the one who started this conversation," Sturmsi reminded him as she pointed an accusing finger at Hook. She honestly felt it was as though she were talking to a brick wall at this point. "You asked me a question and I'm being generous enough to do my best to answer it for you. You wanted to learn something from me and now you're going to listen to what I have to say whether you want to hear it or not. The simple fact is...your expectations are way too high. And because of that...you...will never...be happy. It's sad too, because I actually do see a lot of potential in you, Hook. I really do! But at the moment it's being wasted. I don't care how haughty you are on the outside, on the inside you're an acerbic, dejected, splenetic who is wasting away in his own self-pity, day by day and night by night, and if you keep it up then pretty soon there is going to be nothing left of you but an empty, hollow shell that deserves neither respect, nor pity, from anyone, in which case you should be grateful to be put out of your abject existence!" Then she cocked her head and silently leered at him in a very unsettling way as she seriously considered doing just that regardless of any circumstance.

Rather than becoming even more enraged at that point, although he sorely wanted to, Hook cringed at her harsh words and he was actually scared into silence for several moments by the all-too-familiar leering expression that Sturmsi was giving him just then. It looked as though she was about to leap right over the table at him and actually go ahead and do what she'd just said would be a favor to him right then and there. If he could have seen himself at that particular moment he might have noticed that his face bore a markedly similar expression to the one that Mullins often wore when he gazed inordinately across the bay at the _Bestrafer_. Then his shoulders became slumped with resignation and he just looked at her dumbly. He felt somewhat defeated now that he realized he was afraid of not only Sturmsi herself but also that some of her harsh statements might actually be based in some truth, and that made him feel even more awful than he'd ever felt before. He leaned forwards and caught his head in his hand as the elbow of his left arm rested on the tabletop to support it. It suddenly felt a lot heavier to him than usual and he rubbed his eyes with his gloved fingers for several moments as he pondered the unnerving situation before finally lowering his hand and raising his head up again. "And I suppose you think that YOU could really do so much better than I?" he challenged. "You really think that Bosun Smee, of all the misbegotten miscreants that I have the misfortune of being stuck with at the moment, actually possesses so much as the basest of prerequisites that are needed for one to begin to learn even the simplest examples of what I can only assume are the sort of monumentally complex tasks that must be involved in maintaining the functionality of that..._gah_...mmm..._magnificent_ monstrosity you refer to as...der _Bestrafer_?"

"Yes. And, as a matter of fact, I can prove it," Sturmsi replied smugly.

"Oh? And how _exactly_ would you go about doing that?" Hook asked dubiously.

"Simple," she responded. "Let me _borrow_ Mr. Smee. Let me take him over to my ship, _temporarily_, for say...a fortnight or so."

"_What? Two weeks?_" Hook hissed. "Even if I was to agree to that then how am I to know that you would ever allow him to return to the _Jolly Roger_?"

"Captain...please," Sturmsi scolded him. "You know very well that I could take him right now, with or without your permission, and keep him permanently if I chose to do so and there isn't anything that you could possibly do about it. Fortunately enough for you, though, I have decided to refrain from doing that. I will not take him without your permission nor will I do it if he doesn't agree to it as well. So, how about it then? What have you got to lose? You'll have Smee out of your hair for two weeks and it'll give you the opportunity to prove me wrong about him."

"I...I don't know," Hook replied thoughtfully. "I mean, in case you've failed to notice, my ship is already quite considerably undermanned as it is. And despite the fact that Smee is a blundering blockhead he does possess at least some of the basic skills that are required to operate this kind of vessel within a barely adequate fulfillment of his mandatory duties. And, as you have so eloquently pointed out, he is the only salt-horse squire among my cretinous crew whom I can afford to have garner any measurable degree of my trust without me seriously jeopardizing the security of my very own life. Furthermore, Smee possesses the cacoethes for drudgery that I lack and he does manage to take care of a considerable number of menial tasks that I just don't have the proclivity to be bothered with, so I don't mind telling you that enduring such an extended leave of his absence would be a serious inconvenience to me."

"Aw, come on, Captain. What are you really afraid of? Are you afraid that he might actually come to like it better on my ship and not want to come back to you?" Sturmsi chided.

"No," Hook said. "I think if he possessed the capability to have such an inclination in the first place then he would have accepted the offer that you already gave him at the time you made it and he would not have bothered to risk his life by turning it down."

"Good point. And if he had accepted it...you probably wouldn't be here right now," Sturmsi reminded him with a shrewd smile.

"I realize that," Hook spat with annoyance. He had just about had his fill of being reminded of his liability.

"I promise I'll give him back and I'll even let you come and visit him once a day while he's over there if you like," Sturmsi said.

"Very well, Captain. If you think you can handle him, I'll tell you what...I will speak to Bosun Smee about this later tonight and we will both come to a decision on the matter. The final say, of course, will be up to me...so long as you remain willing to concede to that. You may return to my ship tomorrow in order to receive the answer to your request. Is that agreeable to you?"

"Yes, that's fair enough. I will return to der _Bestrafer_ now. See you tomorrow, Captain," Sturmsi replied warningly and then she quickly got up from the table, went to the door, and exited the room, closing the door firmly behind her and leaving Hook alone in his cabin.

Hook continued to sit by himself for quite some time after Sturmsi had vacated the _Roger_. He contemplated what, if anything, he'd managed to garner from his endeavor to placate her. She'd certainly managed to ruffle his feathers even without resorting to any physical violence, which was something he had to give her credit for as that was not something that was easy to do, even for a demon, but at the same time he'd managed to win at least a few concessions from her in the bargain and he considered that a major victory on his part, which satisfied him well enough for the time being. Then he thought about Smee, who had, however unwittingly, wound up playing the role of middleman during their exchanges, and Hook found that he had to give him at least some credit too. He didn't care much for the idea of his bosun spending an entire fortnight on the _Bestrafer_, especially not without his constant supervision, but then he did look forward to the opportunity it afforded him to learn more about her inner workings.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

_Author's Note: Please be warned that this chapter contains some strong language as well as references to violence and sexual themes._

The sun had just receded below the horizon, leaving only a dull reddish hue that glowed like dying embers from the streaks of hazy light that were left smeared in the wake of the newly fallen sphere, and it glinted randomly in the darkened seawater that served as its grave like there were shards of broken glass in it. And there were no stars to be seen overhead as they seemed to be hiding behind the curtain of smog that currently hung over Neverland like a stale coverlet.

Captain Hook stood by the railing of the _Jolly Roger_ and stared blankly in the direction of the terminal sunset as it marked the expiration of the day, looking at nothing, feeling nothing. And he stood that way for several minutes, letting his mind wander absently until the gentle breeze shifted and brought him the strange odor from across the bay. He did not move at first, save for his eyelids, which only narrowed a bit as the scent permeated his thoughts, and the skeletons of old unpleasant memories were dredged forth from their crevices by the fell wind as it circulated in the monochrome landscape of his cruel heart. And then other things began to arise in it, like a fungus sprouting from spores that had been carried with the invading mistral that was now gusting coldly in his mind, and images of impossible sadism were yielded as the fruit. He tasted some, and found it bittersweet. And he imagined himself doing things even he would never have dared consider before, to the people he considered his enemies, and then also to those he didn't. Distorted shapes flashed in his eyes and he strained to make them out, wanting to see more. They became clearer, and he saw himself in the third person, sitting in a dark room, eating something that was laid before him on a table, and it looked like a cross between a pig and a man. Eating it raw, he was, with blood smeared all over his face and dripping from his hook as he used it along with his bared teeth to render chunks of the flesh for his consumption. And then one of the thing's legs twitched, indicating that it was not all the way dead, and there came a gurgling sound from its gullet. But he kept on eating anyway, savoring every bite of the mushy, stringy substance in his mouth before swallowing it over and over like a ravenous animal. Then the scene changed and he saw himself hunched on the floor, doing something to someone or something else that he couldn't make out. He strained harder to see what it was that was going on there as a morbid kind of curiosity flared within him, causing him to itch with it, and he vaguely felt a stiffening in his trousers. As the vision became clearer, it appeared to be that he was having sex with...someone. Fucking them quite hard too, raping them even. But he couldn't tell who. It was too dark, but he felt the stickiness of the blood that was plastered to his face as his mind's eye shifted into the first person, and he could smell it everywhere as he continued pounding the small figure that he had pinned beneath him, and then he heard some pained whimpering come out of it.

Hook cried with disgust as he snapped out of it, tearing the abhorrent images from his mind to get back to where he really was, gripping the edge of the railing with his hand so hard that he left the indentions of his fingers in the wood. He let go of it and straightened himself, taking a step back as he shook his head to dispel the rest of the dream, or nightmare, or whatever it was that was continuing to try and play itself in his mind, as though it was fighting for its unnatural life as it began to break up and become what appeared to Hook as snowy, or foggy, and there was a strange hissing noise as this happened. Then finally, it stopped, and Hook was left with only a dull ringing sensation in his head as he continued to stand on the deck in the night wind, clutching his head with his hand until he was sure that he'd regained full control of himself. "By the sword of Saint George..." he mused quietly when his vision had finally cleared. "What in the hallowed history of Hampton Court was _that_?" When no answer came, he looked at the _Bestrafer_, or in the direction of it as it could hardly be seen in the now entirely pitch bay. Hook glanced around him to make sure that no one else was nearby before returning his gaze to the invisible structure in the water, that he now suspected was the source of his hallucination, and he muttered something else. "Mullins was right...there is evil in that," he said aloud, as if making a confession to some god that he didn't quite believe in.

Then he turned away from the railing and paused for a moment with a grimace to rub his crotch as his erection finally diminished. Then walked the rest of the way across the deck to stand at the edge of the open hatchway that lead to the fo'c'sle. "SMEE!!!" he bellowed down into it at the top of his lungs. "_BOSUN SMEE_!!!" he roared to elicit an immediate response from the sleeping crewman, not caring in the slightest that he would wake all the others in the process.

There was some scuffling and then a thud as Smee rolled out of his hammock to fall onto the deck below it, and then some more scuffling as the bosun scrambled up the stairway in a groggy state and almost ran right into Hook as soon he appeared from the hatch, not expecting the captain to be blocking the exit. He stopped himself just in time to avoid making contact with the massive form that was in the way, but lost his balance in the process, gasping as he began to pinwheel his arms frantically to keep from falling backwards down the stairs he'd just ascended.

Hook reached down with his hand to bunch the front of Smee's shirt in it and abruptly turned to the side, jerking him out of the hatchway and then releasing him so that he stumbled on the maindeck beside him. "Get yourself together, Smee!" Hook spat at him with a commanding growl as he waited impatiently for Smee to compose himself.

Smee whimpered pathetically as he tried to clear the lingering haze from his mind and get his bearings as well as his balance. "A-aye, Capt'n!" he replied, and he managed a stiff salute as his legs continued to wobble just a bit. He vaguely remembered that he'd been having a very strange and disturbing dream prior to having been awoken, but he didn't bother to try recalling it, rather gratefully allowing the funny feeling it had left him to dissipate as he readied himself for duty before the captain by steadying himself as ordered.

"Come, we've something to discuss," Hook ordered as he prodded Smee with his hook to turn with him as he headed for his cabin.

Smee did as instructed and found himself standing in the blackness of Hook's quarters as the captain turned to and pushed him out of the way so that he could lock the door behind them. Then Hook went to light a single candle on the armoire that stood near his harpsichord as Smee stayed where he was. That funny feeling had come back again as being in this cabin seemed to remind Smee of it, and he shook a little with the unpleasant chill that shuddered through his body as he tried to push it away from his mind. He didn't want to remember what he'd dreamed about that night, not at all, and he hung his head as if sorrowed by it.

Then Hook yanked an armchair into the middle of the room from a corner and sat down in it as Smee continued to stand near the door with his head down, as if he was lost in some unpleasant thoughts. "What is it?" Hook asked him.

"What is, um, what, Capt'n?" Smee questioned as he looked up at Hook with a dull expression and the dim candlelight flickered in the round lenses of his spectacles.

"Is something bothering you?" Hook asked with a half-hearted sneer as he tried to hide any genuine concern from his voice.

"Oh, no, Sir, not at all," Smee replied, trying to sound assuring but not quite making it. In actuality, he was feeling rather queasy at the moment, although he didn't quite understand why, and he was trying hard not to as he pretended the feeling wasn't there, in the air all around him. And he thought he could almost smell blood.

Hook just narrowed his eyes at Smee for a moment in silence before saying anything else. Then he raised his right arm and indicated to another chair that was pushed against the bulkhead near the foot of his bed as he pointed at it with his claw. "Pull that chair over here and sit down," he ordered.

Smee complied as he went over to the chair and took a hold of its arms to drag it to a position a few feet before the spot where Hook was sitting. Then he turned and carefully sat down in it, folding his hands together in his lap as he stared at them to avoid the captain's eyes until he was spoken to again.

Hook relaxed in his chair, grasping his hook in his hand, and he began to stroke it absently as he composed his thoughts and stared at Smee.

Smee fidgeted and began to wring his hands nervously, feeling Hook's gaze upon him. Finally he raised his head to look at the captain. "I-is there something that you're needin', Sir?" Smee asked tentatively, wanting to break the overbearing silence that hung in the room and find out what it was that Hook wanted from him.

Hook furrowed his brow and stared at Smee intensely as he sat forward in his chair, gripping the arm in his hand as he dangled his claw in front of him. "Captain Sturmsi has asked for you, to pay a visit to der _Bestrafer_," he told him. "And I've agreed to it. Apparently she thinks that she can make something out of you where I have failed to succeed. You're as useless a lobscouser as any I've ever known, Smee. No, even more so. And although I concede that you mean well by me, and you're the only man who's ever shown me any loyalty, your amity falls far short of covering for your exceedingly intolerable ineptitude."

Smee blinked a few times at this statement as he pondered Hook's words. Normally, this would be the time where he would thank the captain jovially for his insults, as if he mistook them for compliments. But this time he seemed to actually get the point, for once, as he moved his gaze to the deck between them, slumping his shoulders in shame. "I...I'm sorry, Capt'n. Very sorry, I am," he mumbled as he felt a lump form in his throat, and he swallowed hard trying to dislodge it.

Hook, a bit surprised by this, relaxed against the back of his chair as he rested his claw in his lap. "She'll be back here tomorrow to collect you. And I expect that you'll be ready, and that you won't have any complains about this. Correct?"

"Aye, Sir. I'll go...if that's what ye want," Smee informed him without looking up.

"Good," Hook replied satisfactorily as he rose up from his seat and took a step forward, looking down at the diminutive form that sat cowering in front of him. "I advise you to get as much rest as you can tonight, for I know not what Sturmsi has in store for you. And I don't know what time she'll be here, but I want you to be ready to take your leave come daybreak. Is that understood?"

"Aye, Capt'n," Smee replied, looking up at Hook apologetically as his eyes seemed to plead with him to reconsider.

Hook ignored them. "You are dismissed," he said coldly.

Smee charily got up from the chair then, trying to keep as much distance between him and the captain as was possible in the tight quarters, and he slid around it to get to the door. When he got to it, he turned the latch to unlock it and cracked it open as he prepared to vacate the cabin, realizing suddenly that he might never see the inside of it again. He closed his eyes for a moment as he felt his chest tighten and just barely managed to suppress a sob. Holding his breath, he turned to take a final glance at the captain, who continued to stand in place, looking at him with a stern expression that reeked of contempt. Without another word, Smee turned away and stepped outside.

"Smee, wait," Hook called after him when the hurt in Smee's eyes finally registered on him, and he realized that he hadn't made the bosun quite clear about the impending situation. And he went to the door, grappling the edge of it with his hook to pull it rudely out of Smee's hand just as he was about to close it.

"This isn't permanent, you know," Hook told him, as if Smee should have known that. "I'm not relinquishing you. You're still in service to me, and you'll only be gone for a fortnight. And I want you to pay attention to your surroundings once you board that infernal scow that she calls her ship. Gather as much information as your feeble mind will hold. Sturmsi has said that I may come aboard later to check on you, and I will when it is prudent for me to do so without raising her suspicion. I want to know more about what goes on in there."

Smee had taken a step away from the door to stand and look at Hook while he was talking, and he tried to make sense of what the captain was saying. And without realizing it, there was a fearful expression etched into his face. He did not want to go on that ship.

"Don't worry," Hook said after pausing for a moment to take note of Smee's obvious trepidation. "She doesn't mean you any harm, I'm certain of that. She's got a sharp tongue on her, but I doubt that'll bother you any, seeing as how the bulk of _my_ reprimands go right over your head. You'll be fine."

"If you say so, Capt'n," Smee replied weakly, not really believing him. Which was a first. Usually, he believed everything that Hook said, without question. But now there was doubt, and it made him feel very insecure, as if all the ropes that had kept him hanging in there had just been cut loose so that he was set adrift on a lonely sea made of black water, and he imagined himself in a leaky dingy, watching the _Jolly Roger_ recede away from him as the distance grew greater between them.

"Go on now," Hook commanded him and he made to close the door between them.

Smee's gaze hardened for a moment and he raised his hand in a brief but staunch salute just before he turned away to head quickly back to the fo'c'sle without another look back.

Hook kept the door open just a crack as he watched the bosun leave until he was out of sight. Then he closed the door tightly and relocked it, only to continue standing at it for a while longer as the thought occurred to him that this might be a mistake. But he pushed that idea away and then turned to make for his bed, only to be halted by the sight of what appeared to be a large pool of blood right in the middle of the deck between the two chairs that he and Smee had just sat in. It looked black in the candlelight but he could smell it, and he just knew what it was as some of the images from his earlier hallucination were recalled. Hook gasped and closed his eyes for a moment, giving his head a hard shake before he opened them again to find that there was no blood there. He lunged forward and used his claw to snag the chair in front of him, and he tossed it aside to send it clattering out of the way before stooping over to look more closely at the floorboards, making doubly sure that they were clean. His shoulders slumped in relief when he saw that they were. Then he turned his head as he straighten himself and stood at his full height and stared at the blackness that was just outside the window next to his bed as he heard a peculiar gust of wind pass around the ship. When it was quiet again, he went to the candle and replaced it with a new one. Then he stripped off his cloths and heaped them absently in the other chair that still sat upright. Lastly, he removed his boots and left them lying in the middle of the floor where the "blood" had been so that he was down to only his skivvies. Then he stepped to the side of his bed and fell onto it, wanting this night to be over as he curled himself into the sheets and closed his eyes only to find that he could not sleep. So he moved onto his back and just laid there, staring up at the ceiling and hoping that he wouldn't have any more of those strange visions as he tried to keep his mind off of the ones that he'd already had. So he thought about Peter Pan instead, and he wondered what Pan had been up to lately during his curious hiatus from the _Roger_. He also wondered what Pan thought about der _Bestrafer_ and her captain, and if he'd had the misfortune of meeting her yet. This thought made Hook feel better and the hint of a smile crept into his lips when he realized that there was no way those two could ever possibly get along with each other, and that Sturmsi would likely cause a lot of trouble for him and perhaps even vice-versa to some extent. _The enemy of my enemy is my friend_, Hook thought contentedly as he finally began to drift off to a peaceful sleep. Of course, he didn't really believe that anyone was his friend, or ever would be, though he would use them to his advantage whenever it behooved him to do so. And that's just the way that he tended to prefer it.

* * * * * *


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

The next morning, bright and early, before any of the other pirates were awake yet, Smee was dressed and ready for whatever the day would bring him. Or at least, he hoped he was. But he was quite nervous, and rightfully so. As he ascended from the hatch of the fo'c'sle to stand on the maindeck of the _Jolly Roger_ in the crisp morning air, the proud and merciless sun had just begun to rise in the clear sky of the east, and preceding its ascent were the spokes of its crown that protruded from the horizon, like the forewarning of a resurrected king. The old pirate bosun carried on his shoulder a small tube-shaped satchel made of olive-tinged leather and he continued to stand in place, looking at the orange glow that was also reflected by his eyeglasses, and the hairs on the back of his neck bristled as though he sensed some impending doom. As if on cue, there was a strange blaring from across the bay. Smee cringed at the racket as it continued, and it sounded horrible with a loud scratchy noise blended with that of the horn, and he clung to the strap of his duffelbag as if for dear life itself.

Hook was fully dressed as well, having awoken at least an hour before both Smee and the sun, and he'd been sitting in his chair reading a novel when he was jarred by the abrasive revile.

There was a rustling sound from within Hook's cabin and a few moments later, the doors of it burst open and the captain strode out on the deck to see Smee standing across the way with a drooping expression on his face, though the rest of his body appeared rigid. At the same moment, the horn on the _Bestrafer_ ceased to blow, although the echo of it continued to resound about the bay for several more seconds, and it played in the ears of the two pirates like the residue of a waking nightmare.

Without a word, Hook went to the railing to gaze upon der _Bestrafer_ and scowled as he noted the acrid scent of the pollution that tainted the otherwise clean air in the bay because of her. He also took note of the movement that was taking place on the larboard side of the vessel and he removed a spyglass from his coat pocket to take a closer look from his vantage point. Two individuals had readied a mechanized longboat, one of them being Sturmsi, and it was being deployed to make way for the _Roger_ as Hook expected.

Down below in the fo'c'sle, Starkey had been awakened from a sound sleep by the noise. "Blimey, what was that?" he asked whoever else might also be awake as he rose to sit up in his hammock, rubbing the sleep from his eyes gingerly so as not to make them puffy.

"Well, you know it came from that devil ship, so what do you think?" Mullins responded grouchily. "Somethin' demonic for sure. Man, do I hate that thing!"

"Hmph. I hate just about everything about this place, don't you know?" Starkey replied as he retrieved his rapier and began polishing it with an oily rag that he pulled out of a small box on the floor he kept under his hammock.

"Aye, it's all bad business, I tells ya," Mullins groaned as he laid back down and rolled over to face the wall.

Topside, Smee moved towards the railing a few feet behind Hook to get a better look at the source of the commotion himself. After he noted that Sturmsi was coming to get him, he looked at Hook with an expectant expression, awaiting any last orders from him.

Hook, feeling Smee's gaze upon him, returned it as he lowered the spyglass and turned around to face the bosun. "Stand fast, Smee," he ordered, then he brushed past him to make way for the fo'c'le. Once he got to the hatch, he bellowed into it in much the same manner as he had the previous night, except now he called for Mullins and Mason.

After some clattering from below, both of the men who'd been called ascended the ladderwell and Hook stood aside to let them out. Then they stood next to each other across from the captain as they waited to be told what to do while the ratcheting sound of the motorboat grew louder to indicate that the craft was drawing near to the _Roger_.

"Prepare to heave over a rope ladder as soon as Captain Sturmsi has docked her boat by the hull," Hook ordered them as he turned away, going to brush past Smee again, and then he gripped the railing with his hand and danged his hook over the side as he peered over it to see where Sturmsi would do as he said.

The engine of the motorboat changed to a lower pitch as the boat began to slow down, and when it was just a few yards away from the _Roger's_ hull, Hook turned his head to look at Mullins and Mason again, who were standing between him and Smee untangling the rope ladder as they prepared to carry out their order. But much to their surprise, Sturmsi just leapt from the boat into the air high enough that she could latch onto railing with her hands, and she pulled herself aboard right next to Hook, who took a diffident step back from her when she did this.

Sturmsi just looked at him blankly for a brief moment, then she turned to look at Smee instead, who stood clutching his hands together in front of him in a nervous posture, and she smiled at him. "I take it that you're ready to depart, Mr. Smee?" Sturmsi asked him in an amiable tone as he took a step towards him.

Smee looked at Captain Hook again before daring to hazard an affirmative response.

Hook just gave him a nod to indicate that the answer was yes after he had canted his head to the side to see him past Mullins and Mason.

Then Smee looked back at Sturmsi again. "A-aye, Capt'n Sturmsi, Ma'am. Ready to depart it is, so it is."

Sturmsi looked at the rope ladder that Mullins and Mason had just finished untangling and Mullins looked up at her briefly, feeling her gaze, and he narrowed his eyes suspiciously before affixing them to the rope again. Then Sturmsi looked at Hook as he continued to watch her steadily.

"Now, you curs! Get that ladder over the railing so that Mr. Smee and our guest can be on their way, posthaste!" Hook bellowed as he glared at Mullins and Mason, but especially at Mullins.

The two men as they were told, tossing the end of the rope ladder overboard so that it landed in the brine, and then they positioned themselves so that they could keep a hold of their end of the ladder well enough so that a lightweight like Smee would be able to climb down it without any danger of pulling it out of their hands.

"Go on now, Smee. Get moving," Hook commanded him as Smee appeared to be showing some reluctance to do so.

"Come," Sturmsi called to him as she stood aside from the ladder and gestured to it with an open hand. "It's alright," she added in a soothing tone as she continued to smile at him.

Without a word, Smee did as he was told, and shifted his knapsack so that it was all the way on his back as he went to the railing and climbed over it, throwing his leg over the edge so that it met one of rungs of the ladder. As he made is way down the side of the ship towards the water, the crewman who was manning the tiller of the motorboat revved the engine a bit and caused the craft to move closer to the hull so that Smee would be able to step onto a metal plate that was affixed to its bow. Once Smee had done this, he let go of the rope ladder and made his way to the center of the boat as he expected Sturmsi to come back down the same way he'd come.

When Sturmsi saw that Smee had made it safely into her boat, she gripped the railing of the _Roger_ and made ready to follow him.

"Captain Sturmsi, please wait a moment," Hook requested, causing her to turn back around to face him. Only her eyes shined with curiosity as the rest of her face remained stoic to him. Then Hook turned to Mullins and Mason as he gave them a derisive glance. "Off with you, scugs!" he barked as he raised his claw before him to make them jump. "Back into the fo'c'sle, until I call for you again."

Mullins and Mason stood at attention and exchanged wide-eyed glances before gratefully turning tail to retreat as ordered. "Aye, aye, Captain," Mason muttered behind him as he moved with Mullins preceding him to the lower deck.

Once they were gone from his sight, and their thumping footsteps down the stairway had subsided, Hook turned to face Sturmsi again. Then he took a cautious step towards her, and only her eyes moved to look up at him as the rest of her didn't so much as twitch while she stood her ground. This unnerved Hook a bit as no one else had ever had the nerve to show such apathy in the face of his advancement this close. "Excuse me, but I would like to ask you a question, if you don't mind," he said as politely as he could while he stood just a couple of feet before this demon-thing that was in his midst.

"Go ahead," Sturmsi replied flatly without changing her expression.

"The other night, I...there was some sort of...hallucinations that I experienced," Hook told her, keeping his voice calm and low. "And, mind you, I have never been prone to such inanities. At least, not until you, Madam, arrived at this already foully cursed atoll. So, I was just wondering...might have you bewitched my ship?" he asked, his voice becoming tinged with anger when he got to the question, and he squinted one of his eyes at Sturmsi in suspicion as he held his hook in front of his chest defensively.

Sturmsi's face stayed the same as it was for a moment longer until the shine in her eyes changed from curiosity to amusement. Then she grinned, exposing a row of teeth that looked just a bit too sharp to appear quite normal with the human appearance of her face. "No, I did not," she replied, raising her chin to exhibit her sincerity. "At least...not deliberately or that I know of. But I am curious...what sort of hallucinations did you have? Do tell," she requested in a curious tone that was almost pleading.

Hook let out a quite growl of displeasure as he averted his eyes, recalling the atrocious images that he'd been plagued with the aforementioned night. Then he returned his gaze to Sturmsi and hardened it. "They were not pleasant," he admitted. "I saw things that were...very unacceptable...and I saw myself doing them. Why is that, do you know?"

"Hmm..." Sturmsi replied thoughtfully as she placed her thumb and index finger against her chin and her eyes went out of focus so that they appeared to be looking at something behind Hook rather than at him. Then she focused them squarely back on Hook's face again. "I really don't know, Captain. I wish I could tell you," she said as she moved her hand to hold it open in front of her for a moment before lowering it back down to her side. "Perhaps you could give me some more details about what you saw? Please."

Hook sighed with continued displeasure as he did not want to say such things aloud, not to anyone. But Sturmsi appeared quite insistent as she bored her eyes into Hook's, prodding him to spit it out. "All right. But come over here, would you?" he said as he moved towards the center of the deck and motioned with his hand for Sturmsi to follow him. And she did so without so much as blinking her eyes as she kept them affixed to the towering man before her. She was very interested to learn what kind of hallucinations had caused such an imposing figure to feel so distressed.

Once the two captains had repositioned themselves near the mainmast, Hook took a cursory glance towards the hatch of the fo'c'sle to make sure that no one was standing there before he continued speaking, and he finally described to Sturmsi the visions he'd had, giving her all of the details that he could remember. Normally, he would never have spoken of such things to anyone, let alone a female, but Sturmsi didn't exactly qualify as a human, nor a woman. So he went ahead with it, not really caring what she thought or felt about it, only wanting to get an explanation for it. Needing one. Because he really wanted to make sure that he wasn't actually going crazy, and that there had been an external force involved which had caused his hallucinations.

After Hook had finished telling of his nightmares, he noticed that the expression on Sturmsi's face had changed to one that was very strange. Her lips were pursed together and her cheeks bulged as though she was trying to hold something inside her mouth that was trying to come out. Hook gave her a perplexed look and cocked his head in a confused manner. Then he realized that she was trying very hard to suppress a gout of laughter that was boiling within her when some of it finally came out, and she clasped a hand to her mouth to keep the rest of it from escaping as she squinted both of her eyes closed in case that might help. Hook scowled at her then. "You think that's..._funny_?" he questioned in an appalled tone as he bent over to bring his face just a little closer to Sturmsi's.

Sturmsi shook her head no and gave Hook an apologetic look as she reopened her eyes. Finally, she managed to swallow the rest of her laughter and removed the hand from her mouth as she cleared her throat with a forced cough. "No, Captain. I'm sorry...it's just that, well...I don't understand how a man of your stature, being such the fierce pirate you are, would be so disturbed by such things. I mean...is that normal?"

Hook's scowl turned back into a perplexed look again shortly before it became stern and he straightened himself back to his full height again so that he towered a good two and a half feet above his guest. "I...am a gentleman, Sturmsi" he informed her in a commanding tone. "Such despotism, such wicked animality is unbecoming of _any_ human being, pirate or no. Though I suspect that humanity itself may be quite a foreign concept to the likes of you."

"Oh, not at all, Captain. Not at all. I understand your ways just fine, I was just surprised to learn that you, of all people, actually bothered to adhere to such a moral code of honor," Sturmsi retorted with her voice dripping with the sarcasm it had been steeped in prior to the delivery. Then she waved her hand in front of her as Hook bared his teeth at her, as if to shoo him out of her face like a pesky fly.

Hook obliged her by moving just in inch back to give her only that much more space.

"And it's pretty sad, I think, when one can't control his own mind, witchery or no witchery," she added.

"Well, I'll have you know that I'm not used to being subjected to the whims of any metaphysical forces," Hook spat at her.

"Oh, really?" Sturmsi questioned, looking up at Hook with puzzlement. "Aren't you surrounded by such things every day, in this place? How can you not be used to it by now? I take it you've been here for quite some time. Am I wrong?"

"It so happens that I am unable to be affected by the spells of the natives here," Hook informed her proudly. "Unlike the rest of my crew, I am entirely immune to their trifling forms of magic. This includes the Indians as well as the fairies, mind you. So it does bother me to know that there is some other kind of blight here now that I am not so resistant to, as it would appear," he added with chagrin.

"That's very interesting," Sturmsi replied in a tone that indicated she really was quite interested by it. "Anyway, I wouldn't worry too much about it if I were you," she also advised. "For the time being, I don't mean you any harm. And so long as you stay out of my way, it will stay that way too. And I will see to it that the rest of my crew doesn't do anything to bother you without my permission. But if it's just our mere presence that offends you, I'm afraid you're just going to have to live with it, at least until I have seen fit to quit this place. I don't plan on staying here forever, I assure you."

Hook seemed placated by this well enough to drop the issue for the time being. "Very well," he replied, gritting his teeth before relaxing his jaw and softening his gaze.

"Now, if you don't mind, I have some business to attend to. Farewell, Captain," Sturmsi said and she turned to head back towards the railing as the sound of the motorboat continued to idle below it. "Auf Wiedersehen!" she added with a curt wave, without looking back.

"A fortnight," Hook reminded her as he followed her, staring at her back, and she turned her head around to face him as she kept the rest of her body pointed in the direction that she wanted to go. "Yes, that was the agreement," she replied. "Oh, wait, I almost forgot," she added as she turned all the way back around to face Hook again fully. Then she reached into one of her coat pockets and pulled out something that looked like a large, oddly shaped pistol.

Hook stood his ground without changing his expression, because he knew that Sturmsi didn't need a gun to kill anyone, at least not at this close a range, so he rather doubted that she would bother using one right now even if she did mean to kill him.

"Here," Sturmsi said as she held the object out for Hook to take it in his hand. "It's a flaregun."

Hook took it from her carefully and held it in his palm as he looked at it curiously. "What is it for?" he asked.

"You point it at the sky and pull the trigger, and it shoots out a flare," Sturmsi explained. "It's used for signaling. I promised that I would allow you to come aboard der _Bestrafer_ at least once while Smee is there. But I want to give him his orientation first, then I'll be ready to give you a proper tour. Give me at least three days, though, then signal me when you're ready to come over. And it's only got one shot, so don't waste it or you'll be wasting my time as well as yours. And I'll be wanting that back."

"Alright..." Hook replied a bit confused, but not wanting to appear that way, and after pocketing the flaregun charily he moved to take up the rope ladder with his hand so that he could hold it for Sturmsi to descend it.

But Sturmsi didn't require that, and she just leaped over the side of the _Roger_ while Hook rushed to look over to the edge to see where she would go. She landed right in her boat near the bow with a thud as her boots made contact with the metal, causing the craft to cant forwards quite a bit, but not nearly enough to capsize it.

It scared Smee so much though that he fell backwards so that his ass landed right on the seat of the metal bench just behind him, but he slid off of it and fell onto his back behind it while his legs rested on the seat, skinning his elbow a bit against a patch of rust on the floor beneath him. "Oh, begorra," he whined quietly as he rolled his eyes upwards to see the grossly disfigured man at the tiller peering down at him with an amused sneer etched on what little was left of his face.

Then Sturmsi stood over Smee with one of her feet resting on the bench next to his legs, and she offered him a hand to help him up. Smee took it obediently and Sturmsi yanked him so that he sat correctly on the bench, then she let go of his hand as she shifted her gaze up to look at Freddy. "Let's get going," she commanded and Freddy complied by revving the motor that was attached to the tiller so the boat turned around in a semi-circle so that its bow faced the _Bestrafer_, then it lurched forwards as it took off in that direction at full speed.

Smee barely managed to grasp the edge of his seat with both hands in time so that he wouldn't slide off of it again when this happened, then he turned his head to look at the _Roger_ as it receded from him, and he was reminded of the scene that he'd imagined the previous night in Hook's cabin, which saddened him quite a bit. After a few mournful moments, he turned his head back around so that he was looking at the _Bestrafer_ instead, and he watched as her form began to grow larger in the waning distance between them. The bright light of the newly risen sun glinted from the shiny spots that faced it amid the more prevalent matte of the rust on her hull, and Smee felt his sadness began to dissipate as it was replaced with the more comforting feeling of hope, though much of his fear still remained. And even though he knew that it was morning, for some strange reason, with the way that the sunlight was shining on that ship, it felt to him like it was evening again already.

* * * * * *


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

The motorboat had finally reached the side of the hulking ship, and Smee felt dizzy when he looked up at it as he tried to make sense of the entire structure, something that not even Hook had been able to do successfully. Needless to say, he failed at this endeavor. So finally he just tried to focus on one thing at a time, whatever was in his immediate vicinity, and that helped him to cope with whatever was going on. And he tried to keep in mind that he was actually on a mission here to collect information for Hook, which also helped to ease his mind and keep it focused on whatever task that he was given by Sturmsi. Though it was rather hard for him to do that when a noisy and evil-looking device that dangled high above him began to move so that it was positioned directly over the motorboat, and then it began to lower down upon it with its toothy maw held agape as if to eat whatever was in its path. It was just a crane that was used to hoist the motorboat back onto the ship, but Smee couldn't resist the urge to duck and cover when it descended from overhead and clamped onto the boat.

Freddy laughed at this and Sturmsi affixed him with a deathly glare to make him shut up. But when Freddy tried to stop laughing by putting his gloved hand over his mouth, his eyes kept on laughing, and pretty soon Sturmsi was laughing with them, unable to resist the urge, and then the both of them were guffawing like mad as the boat was lifted out of the water and dragged through the air up the side of the ship while Smee continued to cower on the floor between them, having absolutely no idea what was so funny. And that wasn't because he was stupid, since even a normal person from his timeframe would have felt the same way as he did at that point, being that there was nothing at all normal about this ship or anything on it, to include its crewmembers and the captain.

The crane lifted the motorboat over the bulwark of the ship, upon which there were affixed rows of metal spikes sticking up vertically to act as fenceposts for some rusty spirals of concertina wire that was laden with thorn-shaped razors, so the crane was the only way to get onboard the ship without having to go through that barrier, and most likely get one's self shredded to bits in the process, depending on what he or she was made of.

The crane positioned the motorboat directly over a large square-shaped hole amongst the ruins of the deck, and it turned out to be a shaft that lead down into a compartment in which there were stored several other boats of different shapes and sizes. Once the working boat was laid against a platform that was build into the metal flooring of the deck in this room, the latching teeth of the crane opened so that it was released, and then the apparatus was drawn back up through the shaft at a much faster rate than it had descended. Once it was clear of them, Sturmsi got out of the boat and Freddy followed her, but Smee stayed put, not knowing what to do, and feeling it was best not to do anything until he was told.

"Come on, Smee. Follow me," Sturmsi told him.

Smee did so and he climbed out of the boat and made his way to Sturmsi's side as she waited for him on the deck below the platform. Then Sturmsi went to a large metal door in the room and opened it to reveal that it lead into a dark tunnel. She walked into it and Smee followed her with Freddy bringing up the rear.

Smee noticed a lot of strange looking stuff scattered about the hallway in a manner that suggested it was only a bunch of junk that had been carelessly discarded. And he had to wonder why Sturmsi would allow her ship to be remain so untidy, but he decided to keep that to himself for the moment as he continued to be lead through the strange hallway by his...new captain. Smee gulped when this thought came to his mind, and he recalled Hook's voice echoing to him, _This isn't permanent, you know_. Smee tried to keep that in mind as he continued to follow Sturmsi, but he was in such an alien environment now that it was quite difficult for him to think about anything else besides it. And even more disturbing to him was the fact that although he had spent not even one hour yet on the _Bestrafer_, it already felt like there was nothing else that was real outside of it; and for all his time spent on the _Roger_, though it may as well have been considered a lifetime by then, it was already feeling as though it had only been a dream.

The tunnel was long, and as the trio continued to make their way through it, towards the center of the ship where the main engine room was located, Smee heard a lot of strange noises that he wasn't used to, or had ever heard anything like before during his long life and stay in Neverland. He also felt a strong vibration that was accompanied by a humming sound that was getting louder as they drew nearer to its source, and it tickled his ears and made his head feel funny. As he continued to walk, also noticed that the walls of the tunnel were becoming further apart from each other, and so was the ceiling from the floor, as if the tunnel was funnel-shaped, and eventually he couldn't see the walls or the ceiling anymore as they disappeared into the surrounding darkness, or perhaps they had ceased being there altogether. He couldn't really tell. There were many strange lights in the distance at this point, but somehow the place was still very dark despite them, and often Smee found himself having to avoid running into some cluster of pipes that was suspended in the middle of the hallway as Sturmsi would weave her way through them ahead of him with the fluidity of a snake, and several times he did run into them to find that they were all different and so he never knew exactly what to expect. Some were wet, some were dry, some were hard, soft, hot, cold, pliable or rigid, smooth or rough, or any combination of those textures. One of them was even slimy, and Smee had grimaced and wiped his hands on his shortpants after touching that one. There were also some strange smells permeating the air in the structure, and they were not exactly pleasant, but Smee found himself getting used to them, and pretty soon he didn't notice them anymore as he grew accustomed to his surroundings. Smee was definitely a stupid man, no one would deny that, but aside from his staunch sense of loyalty, another virtue that he also possessed was extreme adaptability, and thus he could find himself getting used to all sorts of things rather quickly, and learn to live with him, such things that most other men would never be able to tolerate for even a short period of time.

Eventually they came to a massive, noisy, and dimly lit compartment at the end of the walkway, and in the center of it there was a giant cylinder-shaped object that took up most of the space in the room. Towards the top it was dry and charcoal in color, but towards the bottom, where it disappeared into a round hole in the deck from which emanated a deep, steady rumbling, it was covered with a glistening black substance. It was also rotating counterclockwise very slowly, and it had many black hoses sticking out of it in places that went right back into it in others.

"This is the primary engine compartment, and that is the Agitator" Sturmsi said loudly enough to be heard over the racket as she pointed at the moving cylinder. Then she turned around to look at Smee for a moment, who was by now quite filthy. And she smiled at him, seeming to like seeing him that way, and her eyes shined at him from the darkness of her silhouette. "Most of the work I'll be having you start with is just below this deck." And with that, she lead Smee towards a manhole that was in the floor right next to the cylinder. When she got to it, she bent down to open the rusty hatch, and then she began to descend the metal ladder that was affixed to the inside of the circular shaft beneath it. Smee waited for her to get far enough down that he could follow her without stepping on her hands, and then he also descended the ladder.

- - - - - -

Sturmsi began to teach Smee how to perform some of the tasks as a bosun of her ship. And Smee's incredible stupidity actually tried even her exceptionally high level of patience so much that it caused her to gain just a bit of sympathy for Hook on this matter. Needing a break from him, Sturmsi forced Freddy to look after him for a while and continue with his lessons, much to Freddy's dismay.

But Smee eventually got pretty good at some of the basic machinery maintenance after apprenticing with Freddy for a while, who disliked him at first, but then got used to him and actually learned to find him somewhat amusing, especially since he had managed to get on Sturmsi's usually unflappable set of nerves. Freddy was the closest thing that Sturmsi currently had to a bosun, though she didn't refer to him as such, and he didn't care much for the job either. So he looked forward to being relived of the duty for a while, hoping that it would get Sturmsi off of his case, and he set himself to the task of teaching Smee the ropes so that he could take over the job. Such work that they performed included the manual cleaning process that required the use of a high-pressure hose to decrust the components and their housing, and a mechanized greasegun that was used apply lubrication to the joints, as well as operating the valves that controlled the route of different fluids to various parts of the ship.

After this, Sturmsi took over Smee's classes again and she taught him how to operate a coal-fired furnace that was used to heat water and make steam. Pretending to be impressed with his ability to learn after being told how to do something at least ten times, she decided against having him mess with the nuclear reactor, except for giving him a class on what to do when it came time to replace some of the rods in it while it was shut down, though she doubted that he would remember much of it even though she did bother to explain it exactly ten times in a row.

At one point, Sturmsi took to her demonform so that she could stand knee-deep in a pool of acid next to Smee without ruining her cloths while he was made to wear a full biosuit for his protection, and she instructed him on some other maintenance task inside one of the exhaust manifolds of the ship's secondary engine.

Sturmsi issued Smee a two-way radio and taught him how to use it, although that was probably the most difficult thing for her to get him to learn yet. But he finally got the hang of it after Sturmsi made Freddy practice with him until he was able to get it right.

Smee was also issued his own private quarters. Alhough the cabin was small, dank, and sparsely furnished, he was elated by this rare treat, to have a room all to himself. And he was fed tightly packaged things that he was told were called MRE's, which he found to be quite a bit more appetizing than most of the stuff that Cookson called grub.

After just two and a half days, though it had seemed much longer than that to everyone involved, Sturmsi felt that Smee had learned enough to start supervising the other crewmen on the specific tasks that he had been trained in, and she issued him a clipboard with a checklist to go by to make sure that they were getting done correctly and on schedule. She knew that he didn't need to be an expert mechanic to perform this simple function, as it was one that he was already well accustomed to from past experience.

- - - - - -

After getting directions to the Indian village from Freddy, Sturmsi went ashore with Smee to teach him how to operate the motorboat and to find the Indian village so that she could check it out.

Once they got into the woods, Smee pulled out his trusty map of Neverland from his pocket and tried to navigate the island for Sturmsi, feeling that it was his duty. She agreed to follow him, if only to humor him, but also thinking that he knew the island better than she or any of her crewmen did. But it didn't work out so well and they actually became a bit lost as a result since Sturmsi hadn't been paying enough attention to her surroundings as she blindly followed Smee, having daydreamed a bit too much along the way.

Finally realizing that something was awry, Sturmsi prodded Smee for information. "Mr. Smee, an update on our location, if you please...where exactly are we at the moment?"

"Eh, well, Captain, I, um..." Smee stammered nervously as he stopped walking. Then he turned to face the captain and sulked at her. "It seems we might've...well...taken a wrong turn?"

"Are you telling me that we're lost? You've actually gotten _me_ lost?" Sturmsi asked as she crossed her arms over her chest and blinked her eyes at Smee incredulously.

Fearfully, Smee responded with a hasty but tentative affirmation. "Uh, aye, Ma'am, mayhap that be the case, b-but..." He stood scratching his head as he studied the old wrinkled, dog-eared map in his hand. "...but the problem is, how can I tell we're lost if I don't even know where we are?"

Sturmsi really felt like bonking him over the head right then, but she resisted the urge and just rolled her eyes at him instead, in much the same manner that Hook so often did. Then she went to Smee and snatched the map out of his hand to take a look at it herself. But it didn't make any sense to her, and she just stared at it in total perplexment as she continued to try. But it was no use. To her, the so-called map seemed like it was nothing more than a weird collage of various odd shapes that were all different sizes and colors, and they were all bunched together in a seemingly randomized pattern in the middle of the paper, so she was unable to even begin making heads or tails of it. And she actually felt a little dizzy from just looking at it. Wondering how Smee had ever thought that he could understand it, but thinking better than to ask him, she simply pushed the map into his chest so that he would take it back. Then she brushed past him to take the lead and began following her instincts. After a little while, she picked up the scent of a campfire and she began to head in that direction with Smee riding on her heels. But before they could make it to the Indian village, a tall dark figure abruptly stepped out of the brush and quickly positioned himself directly in their path as if to block them.

Sturmsi stopped in her tracks and studied the man, having been surprised by him, and she wondered why she hadn't sensed his presence beforehand. Then she noticed that he was a redskin, which explained it to her. Sturmsi knew from past experience that redskins tended to have strong spiritual energy and were also quite adept at the art of camouflage, masking their scent as well as their aura and other telltale signs of their presence, especially when doing so their native environment, in order to remain hidden from their adversaries, be they predator or prey. And she also sensed that this one was probably quite a powerful shaman, noting his high level of confidence now that he had revealed himself deliberately to her.

"Hello," she greeted him coolly as she held out her arm and played her hand behind her to signal Smee to stay back. And he did, although he peeked his head out from behind Sturmsi to see Great-Big-Little-Panther just ahead of them.

Then the Indian spoke. "Are you the captain of the _Bestrafer_?" he asked her in his deep, commanding voice.

"Why, yes. I am. Captain Sturmsi," she replied, impressed that the Indian had gotten the pronunciation of her ship's name correct on the first try. "And who might you be?"

"I am Great-Big-Little-Panther, the chief and shaman of my tribe. And I have a message for you," Great-Big-Little-Panther said to her.

"Ok...I'm listening," Sturmsi replied, her curiosity growing along with a bit of trepidation at the Indian's apparent foreknowledge of her existence.

"I have been in communion with the Great Spirit, and I have been informed that you are an evil demon from the Netherworld that has come to destroy Neverland," Great-Big-Little-Panther said. "And this is true whether you know it or not, and whether you mean to do so or not. Therefore, I must warn you to leave this place immediately, or else a great calamity will ensue, and there will be detrimental consequences for everyone here, including yourself."

Sturmsi scoffed at this. "Um, thanks for the psychic reading, pal, but I don't need a fortune teller. I make my own fate."

Great-Big-Little-Panther kept his steely gaze affixed to the demon before him as he continued to speak. "Captain Sturmsi, you may not mean any harm yourself, but your ship is a danger to my people. And if you value it, then you should board it now and depart from Neverland...while you still can."

"Is that a threat?" Sturmsi asked as her eyes began flashing dangerously at the Indian, to instill in him a heightened sense of caution.

"It is, but it is not my own. I am only the messenger," Great-Big-Little-Panther replied sternly. Then he looked at Smee and gave him a curious glance. "Bosun Smee. Why are you in the company of this demon? Do you not belong to Captain Hook?"

Sturmsi turned her head to see Smee poking his head out from behind her back and Smee gave her a cautious look before replying to the Indian.

"Eh, well, uh, aye, but...well, a bit of a long story it is to tell the truth, so it is," said Smee nervously.

Sturmsi returned her gaze to Great-Big-Little-Panther as she offered him a short explanation. "Captain Hook is letting me borrow Smee for a while. That's all. It's not your concern."

"Captain Hook is my enemy," Great-Big-Little-Panther informed her.

"Well, don't worry," Sturmsi replied assuredly. "He's not exactly my friend either."

Great-Big-Little-Panther was interested to know what kind of dealings that Sturmsi and Hook had gotten into with each other, but he decided not to ask about it now, knowing that Sturmsi would probably just tell him that it was none of his business.

"Anyway, thanks for the message," Sturmsi said. "You should be happy to know that I've decided not to bother you or your people, unless, of course, you do something to bother me. So I think I'll be going back to my ship now, if you'll excuse me." Then she turned to leave, motioning for Smee to follow her, while Great-Big-Little-Panther continued to stand silently, watching them leave. She did actually take the Indian's warning seriously, despite her apparent dismissal of it, and she started planning to make a departure from the island soon enough, although she had no intention of leaving just yet. Not until she felt like it.

- - - - - -

Meanwhile, on the _Jolly Roger_, things were not going quite so well. Much to his chagrin, and not that he would ever admit it to anyone in the world, Hook actually found himself missing Smee after he had only been gone for a couple of days, although it was mainly because he had found out that keeping track of the other pirates and making sure that they were keeping to their work was far too bothersome a chore for him to manage without the aid of the bosun's constant supervision. He had intended to let a week go by first, so as not to seem too hasty. But the other pirates had really started to slack off without Smee regularly threatening them with Johnny Corkscrew, and Hook was just too lazy to micromanage them himself. And so, deciding that he couldn't wait that long, and he stomped out onto the maindeck with the flaregun in his hand, and he fired it at the sky, after exactly 72 hours on the dot had passed since Smee's departure to the _Bestrafer_.

Shortly afterwards, the horn on the other ship was blown to let Hook know that his fare had been seen. And a few minutes later, a boat was deployed to the _Roger_ to retrieve him, but only Freddy was on it. Hook boarded it and Freddy took him over to Sturmsi's ship as he had been ordered to do. They did not bother speaking with one another any more than was absolutely necessary during the trip. Then Hook was brought aboard der _Bestrafer_ to check on Smee and to see the inside of the ship for himself. Hook was quite eager to do both, though he tried not to let it show.

The boat that was carrying Hook and Freddy was brought aboard by the crane, and then lowered into the compartment where the other small boats were stored just as was done previously. And as soon as the boat had been released, Sturmsi appeared from the shadows to greet her new guest.

"Welcome aboard, Captain Hook," she said in a friendly tone as her voice echoed strangely in the metal compartment. "I take it that you're ready for the grand tour I had promised you?"

"Aye," Hook responded roughly, eyeing her in a manner that was unfriendly. "Let's get on with this," he said, not caring much already for the look and feel of the place, nor for the smell.

"Alright then. Follow me," said Sturmsi as she motioned for Hook to follow her, and she lead him into the same tunnel that Smee had traversed upon his arrival three days ago.

As they walked, Hook glanced around his feet at the menagerie of odd-looking garbage that littered the hallway. "I say, Captain Sturmsi. What's with all this...rubbish you've got strewn about?" he asked as he waved his hand around at the mess surrounding them. "Don't you ever have your dogs do any cleaning up?"

"Only in the places where I think it's important, like in the machinery housings," Sturmsi informed him without turning around as she kept walking ahead of him. "I honestly couldn't care less what the rest of the ship looks like. And I doubt that cleaning it would do any good. It tends to have a mind of its own, you see. And I really hate cleaning. Besides, I think it's more beautiful this way, don't you?" she asked Hook, even though she was well aware that the answer to that question was most certainly no. Smiling to herself, she stuck out one of her hands and ran her fingers against the bulkhead she was passing by for a moment or two, to feel the rust on it. It was true that the misleadingly derelict appearance of der _Bestrafer_ wasn't so much an accidental byproduct of neglect as it is an intentional feature, because Sturmsi liked it that way, and she also liked the negative way that most others tended to react to it. So the more offensive it was to others, the more she was pleased by it.

"Not particularly, but I suppose it's just a matter of...taste," Hook replied sarcastically, not trying too hard to be polite. So far he didn't think that this tour was very grand at all, because he rather thought that this ship was totally disgusting. And although he stopped short of actually saying so, he didn't care if his opinion was made apparent on his face or in the tone of his voice. Silently he wondered at the sort of twisted mind it would take to appreciate such a slubberly state of disarray. Then he thought better of it, realizing that he didn't really want to know.

For several minutes after that, they continued to walk along in silence until they were interrupted by something that appeared to be a living shadow. It seemed to come out of nowhere, or from the surrounding shadows of the corridor from which it had bled out of, and its presence was only made apparent to Hook intermittently by the spastic light given off by the broken fixture imbedded in the ceiling overhead.

The creature approached Captain Sturmsi in what appeared to be a tentative stance, then it spoke to her in a language that Hook didn't understand, and its voice was only a raspy sort of whisper. Sturmsi stopped walking as she listened to what the shadow had to say as it flickered before her, and then she said something back to it in the same tongue it had spoken to her in, though she didn't whisper it because her voice was raised in agitation. Then she turned her head to point her shiny eyes at the creature that was standing behind Hook.

"Freddy, go take care of this. I don't have time to deal with it," she ordered him curtly.

"Aye, Captain," Freddy responded, seeming to be rather pleased with being given the order to vacate her presence, and he used his gloved hand to tip his hat to her just before he disappeared into the shadows with the one that moved on its own.

After they were gone, Sturmsi was left alone with Hook and she turned to him to say, "Let's get on with this, shall we?"

"Yes, let's do get this over with," Hook replied.

Sturmsi simply chucked in a lighthearted way as she turned away from him and began walking forwards again. Hook used his claw to billow out his cape so as to shake off some of the dust that had lighted on it during the journey this far, and then he followed her.

As they continued to traverse the tunnel that was beginning to seem quite endless to Hook, he noticed that there was a closed hatch in the side of the bulkhead just ahead of them. Eventually, Sturmsi passed right by it without giving it so much as a glance, and just as Hook began to do the same his attention was turned to it as he heard some curious sound coming from behind it. Hook stopped and stared at it for a moment, then he looked back at Sturmsi, who was continuing to walk ahead of him without noticing that he had stopped. Hook let her go as he took a step closer to the door and listened to it more attentively. He noticed that the noises coming from it sounded somewhat like voices, female voices, and very excited ones, although they were muffled so he couldn't quite tell what it was that they might be talking about. But whatever it is, it seemed very...intense, and then he also heard a few of what sounds like moans. He tried to figure out what it could be that they were doing in there, and all sorts of things come to his mind, including some dirty thoughts, because the more he listened to the voices, the more they sounded like they were coming from a group of women who are having some very wild sex. Against his better judgment, but driven by a strong urge that he was unable to resist, he reached for the door to open it. But just before his hand was able to reach the handle to take a hold of it, he was suddenly yanked backwards by his cape with such a force that he nearly lost his balance and fell right on his ass, and he probably would have if his shoulder had not struck a fat, sturdy pipe that was sticking down from the ceiling, and he put his hand against it to steady himself. Startled, he managed to regain his composure in time to prevent himself from falling as Sturmsi slinked around him quickly to stand between him and the door, and she leaned back against it protectively with her hands splayed upon it to block him from it.

"You don't want to go in there," Sturmsi told him with an expression of urgent sincerity as she maintained her defensive position in front of the door.

Hook shot her a glare filled with needles as he suppressed an angry growl for having been handled so roughly. "Why not?" he spat in a tone that demanded a good explanation for such rude behavior.

"This is one of the bad rooms," Sturmsi replied in a tone which suggested that was all that he needed to know.

Hook looked at Sturmsi accusingly. "Bad rooms?" he questioned with a scoff. "What, exactly, do you mean by that?"

"It's a section of the ship that's in a state of...disrepair, so it's not safe to go in," Sturmsi explained, though there was something in her voice that gave away the fact that she wasn't been entirely truthful.

"Oh? But I heard voices in there," Hook said as he crossed his arms and looked at Sturmsi smugly for having caught her in such an obvious lie.

"Never mind about that," Sturmsi told him as her eyes flashed at him warningly.

Sighing, Hook decided to relent. "Oh, very well. If you _insist_," he replied as he rolled his eyes to convey his annoyance. He really wanted to see what was in that room. But perhaps it was better to just let it alone, at least for now, he thought, and there was no telling what kind of foul abominations might be hiding in the dank crevices of this infernal garbage-scow. At least, that's what he told himself, if only so that he could remain civil with Sturmsi for the time being.

"Come along now, let's go find Smee," Sturmsi said as she moved away from the door to lead Hook away from it.

But just after she had done so, he heard a yell from inside the room that recaptured his attention, making him wonder again just what in the _hell_ was going on in there. He just _had_ to know.

Sturmsi turned to him and just glared.

Noticing this, Hook let out a hissing sigh and then finally left the door alone, albeit reluctantly, and resumed following Sturmsi.

After they had gone around a bend down the way, Sturmsi was distracted by a crackling sound that came from inside one of her pockets. Stopping in her tracks, she reached under her coat to pull out a radio that had been stored in a case that was attached to her belt, and then she began speaking into it in German.

Hook marveled at the device when he realized that the crackling noise that it made was actually the voice of someone else that was being transmitted somehow, from somewhere else inside the ship. Although he couldn't tell, the voice on the other end of the line belonged to Freddy, and he had an even more serious problem to report to the captain that required her immediate attention.

Annoyed, but with an urgent expression, Sturmsi spat something else into the radio, after which she clicked it off so that it was silent again. Then she turned around to face Hook as she decided what to do.

"My apologies, dear captain, but something has come up and, unfortunately, I've got to take care of it real quick. Please...just stay right here until I return, which I expect will be in just a few minutes," she told him. She decided not to try taking Hook with her on this errand because the fastest route to get to the area that she needed to be in was not very suitable for a human to traverse.

"Alright," Hook agreed apathetically.

"Don't mess around with anything while I'm gone," she reminded him sternly.

Hook replied by giving her a dirty look, as he didn't appreciate being bossed, even if this was her ship, let alone being treated as a child. "I am quite capable of keeping myself in line, Captain Sturmsi, I assure you."

Not taking the time to argue with him, Sturmsi took off and quickly disappeared into the shadows at the end of the hallway.

After she was gone, Hook just stood there all by himself for several minutes. And then, getting bored, he began to fidget. After about ten minutes had passed and Sturmsi had still not returned, Hook began to pace. Then he started to think about that room again, the one that Sturmsi had referred to as the "bad room". Another five minutes went by and Hook became fed up with waiting. And, not knowing what else to do, he decided to go back to that room and investigate it, not caring that Sturmsi had said not to, and actually wanting to all the more just because of that.

He found his way back to the forbidden door without much trouble and then he stood before it, listening for sounds on the other side. At first it seemed to be all quiet now, but after straining somewhat he found that he could just barely make out what sounded like hushed female giggling and urgent whispering. Finally, he could contain himself no longer, and he took a hold of the door handle, gave it a firm tug, and pulled to open it.

What he saw inside the room was something that he would have been much better off not being able to comprehend at all, but the problem was that he was able to just begin doing so. And it appalled him on some level of consciousness that he hadn't previously known existed. And, oddly enough, he also felt the urge to go in and become a part of it, and he was having trouble resisting that horrible temptation. With a strained gasp, he finally managed to get the door shut again, and then he heard Sturmsi's chiding voice from just behind him.

"I told you," she said.

Hook turned around to face her and he saw that by her expression, she may as well have had the very words that she'd just uttered tattooed right across her face. He returned this knowing look with a haunted one, though he also managed a half-hearted sneer along with a queasy, "Rub it in, will you?" Then he doubled over and retched, vomiting upon the deck right between them.

Sturmsi sighed and said, "Well, I didn't say it for _my_ health." Then she went to Hook, took him gently by the arm, and began to lead him somewhere else. "Come on, I'll take you to a place where you can try to recover yourself."

On the way there, Sturmi noticed that Hook really didn't look well. "Are you going to make it?" she asked him as they continued to walk.

"_Yes_," Hook replied curtly as he gritted his teeth. And that's all that he was able to manage for the time being.

"You know," Sturmsi told him in a soft, slightly amused voice, "from my experience, there are not many mortals, especially male ones, who can handle such sights without losing their sanity right along with their breakfast."

Hook did not reply to this as he continued allowing Sturmsi to take him wherever it is that they were going now, feeling that there was no other choice for him at this point but to trust her and hope for the best, and he did remember that she had indeed warned him about opening that cursed door.

Eventually they came to a thick, velvety red curtain that seemed rather out of place to Hook, and after passing through it they ended up in an odd room that was uncharacteristically immaculate as compared with the rest of the ship, as well as strangely quiet since the curtain that surrounded it seemed to block out all of the noise from the rest of the ship. Hook looked around and saw that it was a lounge, and quite a spacious and luxurious one, although it was also quite sterile-looking.

Sturmsi lead him to one of the easy-chairs that was situated near the center of the room, and she let him sit down in it to rest. She continued to stand by him patiently while he did this with an expression that was almost grateful, and she noted that if his expression had been any closer to being what it almost was, it wouldn't have looked right on his face.

Hook relaxed in the comfortable chair that was covered with smooth black leather as he rested his hook in his lap, and he stared at the weird black and white zigzag pattern on the floor in front of him. And, oddly enough, he did actually start to feel better. Pretty soon, in fact, the only thing that he would remember about what he saw in the bad room, or rather what he would allow himself to remember, was that, along with the loud, slow thumping of what had sounded like some infernal kind of heartbeat, on the back wall, past the rest of what else had been inside, there had been a square picture of what had looked like a close-up of a woman's open mouth, and it had been hard to tell if it was supposed to be laughing or screaming.

- - - - - -

When Hook felt well enough to go on with his so-called "tour", he got up from the chair. And after spending a minute or two neatening his attire, he allowed Sturmsi to lead him through the curtain again, out of the stolidly tranquil lounge, and back into the rough, noisy corridors of the ship.

Soon afterwards, they were walking along a catwalk that was suspended over another section of the ship when Hook heard Smee's unmistakable brogue resounding through the large compartment just below them. When they got close enough to see what was going on down there, Sturmsi looked smugly at Hook's surprised expression when he saw Smee with his nose aptly put to the grind, working alongside several other crewmen of Sturmsi's, barking orders at them as per the captain's wishes for him to get down to some serious bosunry.

Hook leaned over the railing of the catwalk and stood speechless for a moment while Smee held out Johnny Corkscrew with one of his thickly gloved hands, threatening his charges with aeration should they fail to meet their captain's expectations, and gripped a large clipboard in the other. The bosun wore a bulbous yellow hardhat from which the inanely vertical tuft of his sandy-gray bangs sprouted from his forehead, along with a matching bodysuit that was at least two sizes too big for him, and a set of baggy waders that were made of the same black, rubbery material as his gloves were. To Hook's dismay, it appeared that Smee had made himself quite at home on der _Bestrafer_ despite his ridiculous bumble-bee like appearance, with emphasis on the bumble part. Or perhaps it was because of it, Hook thought, with an almost-but-not-quite amused expression. For only a man, that counted as human, as oblivious to his surroundings as Smee was could manage such a feat in such a short period of time.

"SMEE?!" Hook called down to him loudly, causing everyone below to stop what they were doing as they all looked up at him in surprise.

Smee was so startled by his voice that he jumped almost a foot into the air and accidentally threw the metal clipboard that he'd been holding only to have it fall back down right on his head. It was a good thing that he'd been wearing that hardhat or else one of the sharp corners of it may very well have pierced his skull. He tried to catch it with his free hand as it bounced off his shielded cranium, but missed, and he let out a dismayed "begorra!" as it plopped right into the pool of black stuff that he was standing in, and then he slipped and also fell on his knees in it. Not bothering to try and get back up yet, he quickly sheathed his cutlass and then stuck both of his hands into the mess to begin searching for the lost clipboard. After he'd found it, he picked it up and got back to his feet again, shaking the thing madly to try and get some of the sticky stuff off of it only to have it slip out of his hand and be flung right back into the goop again. Exasperated, he finally just stood there and looked up at the two captains who were watching him from the catwalk above.

Sturmsi giggled at Smee's predicament as Hook just raised a knowing eyebrow at the sight of the all-to-familiar Irish blunder of nature that stood below him.

"Come on up here, Smee," Sturmsi called down to him then, and she cleared her throat to cease her chuckles. "Your captain wants to see you."

Smee stood at attention and saluted, which caused some of the goop that was still clinging to his hand to splat right across his face, narrowly missing his eyes. Fortunately it was just used oil rather than something more caustic in nature, and Sturmsi couldn't help laughing again as he began to trudge his way thought the sludge pool to get to the ladder that lead up to the catwalk a few yards ahead of where she and Hook were currently standing.

"Oh, I don't know about that," Hook muttered under his breath, though Sturmsi's statement was true. He was actually glad to see that Smee was all right, though he wondered if anyone could ever honestly call it that.

"The rest of you scoundrels get back to work and quit that silly gawking!" Sturmsi shouted at the other crewmen, and after seeing that they hastily complied, she moved towards the ladder and waited for Smee to ascend it.

Hook came up behind her and looked down as well, fully expecting the old bosun to lose his footing, especially in that baggy outfit and with that gunk sticking to his boots, and go plummeting right back down into the pit. And the meaner part of him, which was the bigger part of him, actually hoped that it would happen just to further prove his point about Smee's unfaltering incompetence.

But somehow Smee managed to make it and as soon as he was close enough, Sturmsi reached down and took a hold of him by the collar and pulled him the rest of the way up onto the catwalk, positioning him safely between herself and the other captain.

"Thanky, Captain Sturmsi, Ma'am," Smee said gratefully as she completed the maneuver.

"Here, let me get that shit off your face," Sturmsi replied as she pulled a gray handkerchief from her pocked and used it to wipe Smee's face until most of the oil had been removed from it, though it left a black stain that wouldn't come off until after he'd washed it with a strong soap.

Then Sturmsi turned him around to face Hook, who stood towering on his other side with his fist and hook planted firmly into his sides, glaring down at him intently.

"Ahoi, Captain Hook, Sir," Smee greeted him enthusiastically and he instinctively began to make another salute, but he stopped himself just in time when he saw that his hand was still quite laden with oil, and he thought better of it as he lowered the messy thing back down to his side.

"Smee," Hook growled at him. "_What_ have you gotten yourself into?"

"Oh, uh, well, Sir, it be, eh...a mite hard fer me to explain," Smee replied as all the lessons that he'd recently been taught circulated madly in his mind all at once and thus became jumbled in it.

"Not to worry, Captain," Sturmsi chimed in from behind the bosun. "Mr. Smee has been doing quite well here, I assure you. He's been doing _exactly_ as I have instructed."

"Well, that's just peachy," Hook replied sarcastically as he looked Smee over with a derisive expression that completely belied the true concern he had for the little man as well as the insecurity that was instilled in him by Sturmsi's confident praise for him.

But Sturmsi knew better and she smiled slyly at Hook to indicate this, which made him scowl at her instead.

"Anyway," Hook said as he flitted his hand in front of his face to change the subject, "I suppose that means you'll be wanting to keep him for the rest of the time that I have allotted for him to be away here, is that correct?" he asked Sturmsi, secretly hoping that the answer would somehow be no.

"Oh, yes, indeed," Sturmsi replied cheerily, and her grin widened as she sensed Hook's discomfort with this. "He's working out quite well here so far, and I have several more plans in store for him that we've yet to even start on. In fact, I was even hoping that you might be kind enough to allow him to stay with me a bit longer than was originally planned. How about giving me an extra week?" she asked with as much politeness as she could possibly muster.

"Oh, I don't think that would be quite possible," Hook replied gravely as he shook is head slowly to indicate that the answer was no, growing ever more agitated by the situation. "In fact, I was rather hoping that you might be so kind as to allow me to take him back a bit early. As in _today_." He had sorely hoped that Sturmsi would have gotten so fed up with Smee by now that she would have begged for the dolt to be taken back to the _Roger_. But, no. Instead, she either sincerely liked Smee and really did want to keep him, or she was doing a fine job of pretending that this was so just to get under Hook's skin. And he looked at her sternly as her smile faltered and she narrowed her eyes at him. "I will be honest with you," he added with sincerity, "things are going to hell in a handcart on my ship with only four able seaman aboard to manage the upkeep." And that was the truth.

"Well. Perhaps, if you are in such dire straights, I should oblige you," Sturmsi said in a shrewd tone. "But, then, are you willing to admit that I was right about what we discussed earlier, and that you were wrong?" she asked Hook as she turned her head to the side to show him her profile though her eyes stayed on him, and she smiled again.

"What??" Hook questioned, and his face turned red with what was rather difficult for Sturmsi to determine as either anger or embarrassment. Perhaps, she decided, it was an even mixture of both. "No, I think not," he added quickly before she could offer to reiterate herself, and he gritted his teeth with a flare of chagrin, which was something that he would have to start being careful about lest he would wind up grinding them down to nothing before too long. "_We will keep...to the original...agreement_."

"Very good," replied Sturmsi calmly as she raised her chin in an expression of triumph. "Now, would you like to see more of my ship, or are you ready to return to your own?"

Hook forced himself to relax before replying. "I think, at this time, that the latter would be best. I do need to be getting back aboard the _Roger_ before the rest of those bagoo-eating dunderheads that call themselves my crew become too complacent in my absence."

"Alright then," said Sturmsi and then she looked at Smee, who continued to stand between them in what appeared to be a bewildered state. Not that it seemed unusual to either of them. "Bosun Smee, I would like for you to get back to work now," she told him with a friendly smile. "You're doing a fine job, keep up the good work!"

"Oh, aye, aye, Captain, uh, Sturmsi, Ma'am! Back to work it is!" Smee responded as he was jarred out of his thoughts, or daydreams, or whatever it was that had been going on in his head during this conversation, if anything, and he turned to face her, standing rigidly at attention. Then he remembered that Hook was standing there too, and he turned to look up at him expectantly, as if he needed his permission as well before moving. And he saw that Hook was unhappy, which made him feel very bad even though he didn't have any idea what the cause of the distress was. Everything that the two captains had spoken about with each other had gone right over the top of his head. Quite literally, in fact, considering that Sturmsi was actually a bit taller than Smee was, even in her shortest form. Smee creased his brow in concern as his eyes silently questioned Hook about what was wrong.

Hook glanced down at Smee with an expression that said, _I wish I hadn't done this_.

But Smee only managed to respond to that with a confused expression, not that it was unexpected.

"Smee-ee," Sturmsi cooed from behind him in a gently scolding tone, reminding him that he'd been given an order.

"Oh, uh, right!" Smee responded as he quickly began looking back and forth at the two captains, apparently trying to look at both of them at once, and seeming to be torn between them.

"Go on, Smee," Hook told him, seeing what the problem was. "Do as she says. For now."

"Aye, Sir," Smee replied with a relived expression as the programming of his simple mind was given the right command that it needed to continue functioning, and then he turned to begin making his way down the ladder again.

Sturmsi and Hook both watched him as he climbed back down into the pit, and, as fate would have it, about two-thirds of the way down Smee slipped and fell the rest of the way into the oily sludge below with a great gooy splash. He managed to land on his feet though, and after pinwheeling his arms around like crazy for a few moments, he regained his balance well enough to steady himself and get his act back together. Then he trudged back to the place where he had dropped the clipboard earlier and bent over to stick his hands into the slop again, searching for it along the bottom. Miraculously, he found it, and after pulling it out of the mess, he held it behind him and rubbed it against the relatively clean spot on his back to wipe it off, so that such a clean spot no longer existed on him at all. This worked well enough that he could read it again, as the paper it held was encased inside a clear sheath of what Sturmsi had told him was called plastic. Then he resumed his duty of supervising the other crewmen as they continued to toil in the pit, using shovels to remove the solid waste from the liquid as they piled it into metal carts that stood by them.

"He'll be alright," Sturmsi murmured more to herself than to Hook before she turned to him again. "Shall we?" she prodded.

"Aye. Do get me out of this confounding place," Hook replied with a weary expression. "My bunk is calling me, and I shan't search it 'til Johnny Cat has given a fair enough back-scratching to every lazy scug that'll surely be caught drowsing on the watch."

Sturmsi only replied to this with a half-smile as she walked around Hook and began to lead him back the way they'd come.

Hook took one last glance over his shoulder at Smee, who was turned away from him now and fully engrossed in his work, before he turned to face Sturmsi's back again and followed her to take his leave of der _Bestrafer_, hoping to never see her foul insides again.

"I trust that you will return Bosun Smee to my ship after his allotted time here with you as expired," Hook called to her.

"Aye, in eleven more days," Sturmsi replied without stopping or turning around as she merely raised a finger beside her head in a reminding gesture. And Hook didn't need to see her face then to be able to tell that she was smiling once again, basking in the irony of the situation that she had created just as happily as a pig would wallow in some cool mud on a hot day.

When they passed by the door to the "bad room" again, Hook gave it as wide a berth as possible, and he kept his eyes firmly affixed to Sturmsi's back the entire rest of the way out of the tunnel, until he was brought topside, at which time he had never been more happy to lay eyes on the _Jolly Roger_.

Then Sturmsi personally delivered him to her as she operated the tiller of the motorboat. Declining to converse with each other any further, as soon as Hook had safety reboarded his ship, she promptly left him and returned to her own.

* * * * * *


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

Peter woke up with a start, sweating from a nightmare that he could barely remember, and didn't really want to. He was in bed, lying on his back, in the dark. He hated sleeping on his back. Why was he on his back? And something else was wrong. He couldn't move. No matter how hard he tried, he could not make one piece of himself move, not even an inch. He tried to cry out, but nothing happened. He couldn't even open his mouth. He was completely paralyzed. And he didn't know why. He wasn't sick anymore, he had gotten well. So why was this happening now? What was wrong with him now? And there was something else in the room. Something that didn't belong there. He could just barley see it in his peripheral vision, to his left. It wasn't one of the boys, or Wendy. Or Tink. Or anyone, or anything else that he knew. He knew that much. And whatever it was, it was hovering right next to his shoulder. He strained to see what it was, not being able to turn his head or even his eyes. All that he could make out was a blurry, gray and black blob that reminded him of a giant piece of bird crap. Or the mutilated remains of a rotting human torso. And it was moving up and down very slowly, like it was floating, like a hideously deformed balloon. And it made him feel funny. Every time it came down next to him, he felt a strange vibration, and then he realized that it also made a humming sound when it did this. The sound felt strange, in his head, like it was penetrating his mind, and it tickled. But not in a good way. And there was nothing that he could do about it. It just kept on doing whatever it was doing as he lied there, helpless. Terrified, Peter got angry. He wanted to kill it. _You just wait_, he said out loud in his mind. Suddenly, he was suspended upright over his bed, though he didn't remember getting up or flying there. But he felt like he had some control now, though he still couldn't move any part of his body. The thing had moved with him and it was still doing its thing right next to his shoulder, seeming unphased by his movement. Somehow, Peter floated rigidly to the foot of the bed, operating on only sheer willpower rather than any fairy magic. There was a small, child-sized desk on the floor there, up against the wall. Somehow, Peter turned himself in the air and floated down towards the desk to rest his left shoulder on it, pinning the thing against it. He couldn't feel it although it was still there, but now it couldn't move anymore. Now it couldn't hum or tickle him anymore. Then Peter turned his head to the right, having regained the ability to do so, in case another one might show up to attach itself to is other shoulder. Then he really woke up, to find himself lying on his back, in his bed again. He sat up and looked around. There was nothing in the room that shouldn't have been there. Everything was all right now. Everything felt right now.

Then he flew out of bed into the cold, dim morning air that had permeated the underground house to check on the others. They were all sleeping soundly, including Tink. And Peter decided not to wake them just yet.

Peter had indeed recovered from his illness that he had contracted on the _Bestrafer_. But ever since then, he had been suffering from some strange kind of waking dreams in which he found himself paralyzed before completely waking up. And they seemed to happen more often when he fell asleep on his back. So he tried not to do that anymore, but sometimes he just couldn't help it. And sometimes it didn't matter.

Then he flew out of the underground house and way up into the sky above it. It was early, but the sun would be rising soon, and the sky of the east was already lit with its aura. Peter turned to face the bay to the west. It was still dark over there, but he could just barely make out the speck that was Hook's ship, as well as the larger blob that was the other. For some reason, looking at it reminded him of the episode he'd just experienced. Maybe because their coloring was similar, gray and black. And he shuddered. Maybe he wasn't completely cured from his infection after all. Maybe he was still carrying something. He had no idea. But whatever it was, he hated it. He hated everything about the _Bestrafer_ and whatever it had brought with it to Neverland. That's right, he told himself. IT. He would never refer to that thing as a "she" again.

Then he flew back down into the underground house and woke up all the other boys.

"Aw, Peter," Tootles groaned as he picked himself up from the floor groggily and yawned. "It's not even light out yet."

"It's light enough!" Peter replied as he floated over to Tootles upside-down, with his feet hanging directly over his head, and got right into Tootles' face. "Quit being such a wuss!"

"Peter Pan!" Wendy cried as she got up from her chair in a huff. "Don't you say that again!"

"Oh, come on, Wendy. You know it's true. And you should stop being such a nag!" Peter replied as he turned to Wendy and maintained his position in the air while crossing his arms defiantly.

"Peter, what in the world has gotten into you lately?" Wendy demanded to know as she also crossed her arms and glared at Peter.

And Tootles started to cry.

Wendy went to him and knelt down to hug him against her chest. "Now look what you've done!" she scolded Peter. "The sun's not even up yet and you're already causing trouble!"

Peter mumbled her words right back to her, deliberately slurring them in a mocking way.

Wendy just glared at him even more angrily as she continued to hold Tootles, who was still crying.

Tink heard the commotion from inside her flower hut, having been awakened by it. But not wanting any part if it, she simply pulled her covers over her head and buried her face in her pillow to try and drown out the noise so she could go back to sleep. "Stupid humans," she mumbled to herself. Although she, too, had recovered from her physical ailments, she had also been a lot more cranky than usual. But this was most likely due to Peter's recent bout of grouchiness.

Then Peter turned to the rest of the boys as he righted himself in the air. "You men, follow me!" he commanded in a voice that sounded just a bit deeper than usual. Then he turned away from them and flew out of the house, not waiting to see if they would follow or not.

Still rubbing the sleep from their eyes, Nibs, Slightly, Curly, the Twins, plus John and Michael followed Peter outside while Tootles stayed behind with Wendy.

They followed Peter to a clearing in the forest several hundred yards away from the house. Then Peter turned to face them as he lighted on the ground, and they also landed in a loose formation in front of him, waiting to see what he had in mind.

"I want to play pirates!" Peter announced. "John!" he said as he pointed his finger at the boy wearing the derby hat. "You will be Captain Hook! _I_ will be _me_, and the rest of you will be my squires! Hold on a second." Then Peter flew to a nearby tree and searched through its branches until he had located one that was relatively hook-shaped. He broke it off and picked the leaves off of it before he flew back down and handed it to John. "Here, hold this in your right hand and don't let go of it. You're not allowed to! Oh, and don't forget, you're not allowed to fly either! Hahahaha!" Peter added gleefully as he hovered in the air above John, who only groaned in response as he reluctantly did what he was told, knowing the routine all too well.

"The rest of you men, take to the air and follow me!" Peter shouted. "We will let Captain Hook prepare his defense while we go plan our offense!" And with that, Peter took off to go hide somewhere in the woods as the rest of the boys followed him, leaving John behind to sulk with the stick in his hand.

Looking at the stick with derision, John grumbled to himself discontentedly, "I hate being Captain Hook."

- - - - - -

Meanwhile, back in the underground house, Tootles had finally stopped crying. He sat on a rug on the floor next to Wendy as she rekindled the fire in the fireplace, which had gone out while they had been asleep. "Wendy?" he asked as he looked up at her.

Without turning around, as she continued with her task, she replied, "Yes, Tootles?"

"Why is Peter so mean sometimes?"

Wendy stopped what she was doing for a moment as she turned her head to look down at Tootles, who's eyes had dried now but still contained much sorrow. "I don't know," she replied. "I guess that's just the way he is sometimes."

"Boys will be boys," Tink chimed in as she knelt on the pad just outside the curtain of her flower hut.

"But I'm a boy, too," Tootles reminded her.

"Yes, you are, Tootles," Wendy replied as she resumed stoking the new fire. "But you're a special boy. And you should be proud of that."

"I don't like being special," Tootles moped.

Tink rolled her eyes and crawled back inside her flower hut to go back to sleep again. She really didn't feel like doing anything today, or even talking to anyone. And she decided that she wouldn't.

Wendy tried to think of some words that would comfort Tootles, but all she could manage was, "It's alright, Tootles. Try not to worry so much."

"I think I'll go outside and play," Tootles said as he got up from the floor. "By myself, as usual," he also mumbled under his breath.

"Alright," Wendy replied. "But be careful. I'll start making some breakfast. It should be ready in about an hour. Ok?"

"Ok, Wendy," Tootles replied as he took to the air left the house.

When Tootles ascended from the house, he saw that the sun had just fully risen and the air was already pleasantly warmed by it. He just hovered in the air for a few moments and he let the new day's light wash over his face as he tried to figure out what he wanted to do. He couldn't think of anything in particular, so he randomly chose a direction just starting floating through the forest, to see where he would end up. Eventually, he found his way to the beach, the same spot in fact where he had found the dead mermaid several days ago. Thankful that it was gone now, he sat down in the sand and looked out into the bay. From his vantage point, he could see neither of the ships that were moored off the coast, as Hook Island was blocking the _Jolly Roger_, and the shore of Neverland itself was blocking the _Bestrafer_ from his view. And that suited him just fine. He'd never cared much for any pirates. The sound of the surf splashing softly against the sand lulled him, and he began to daydream about a fantasy in which he was the hero of Neverland instead of Peter, and he had just driven off all of the pirates and all of the other bad things that existed there so that everyone else could finally live in a perfect state of peace and harmony. All thanks to him, Neverland was transformed into a place of nothing but pure goodness. It was Heaven. And as a result, Peter changed right along with it. He became a mild and gentle boy, just like Tootles was. And they became best friends. Tootles imagined Peter wrapping his arms around him, hugging him tightly, and Tootles felt warm all over as he hugged himself to emulate the feeling. Closing his eyes, he began to drift off to sleep. But then he was brought back to reality by a strange sound. Opening his eyes, but continuing to clutch himself, he listened, trying to figure out what the sound was. It was coming from the water around the bend, towards the area where the new ship was parked. And it was growing louder in a way that indicated that whatever was making the noise was getting closer to him.

Alarmed, Tootles let himself go and stood up as a boat shot into his view from around the bend of the shoreline. Panicking, he turned to run for the trees, forgetting momentarily how to fly. And he tripped in the sand and fell on his face in it. Struggling, it was as though he had fallen in some quicksand and he couldn't seem to go anywhere. Feeling trapped, he cried out, "No!", and pushed himself up in the sand. Then he managed to take to the air enough to float into some bushes that grew just beyond the beach, not bothering to look behind him. As he settled himself on the ground behind the bushes, he hoped and prayed that whoever was on the boat hadn't spotted him, and he turned himself around so that he could peek through the leaves at whoever was arriving. The boat was noisy, and thus mechanical, so he knew that it had come from the new ship rather than Hook's. Tootles had the urge to just leave now and go back home so he could eat breakfast with Wendy. And his tubby stomach growled in agreement with this idea. But then he told himself no. He had to stay and see what was going on. He had to stop being such a chicken, and he had to stop letting his stomach rule him. That was the only way, he knew, that he would ever be able to gain any real respect from the others.

The boat came at the beach fast, and didn't show any signs of slowing down. Tootles could see that there were two people on it, but they were still too far away for him to tell who they might be. About 25 feet out from the shore, whoever as operating the motor shut it off and pushed a lever that caused the tiller to raise up out of the water, and then they let the boat coast the rest of the way so that it wound up beaching itself on the sand. That's when Tootles noticed that the other person, the one nearer to the bow, was Smee. And he didn't recognize the one at the stern because it was someone that he'd never seen before. Squinting, he could just barely tell that it was a woman. Then he watched as Smee and the woman got out of the boat to stand on the beach next to it, facing each other. And he listened as he heard them talking.

Sturmsi stood on the beach in front of Smee, who waited patiently for her orders as she eyed the treeline around the beach suspiciously and sniffed the air. Someone was out there, watching them. She could smell him, and feel his eyes. But she decided to ignore him for the time being, pretending not to notice his presence. "Smee?" she asked as she looked around the beach nonchalantly.

"Yes, Capt'n?" Smee replied with an eager expression that would have been just as fitting on the face of a friendly dog.

"Do you still have that map?"

"Eh, what map ye be referrin' to, Capt'n?" Smee asked with genuine ignorance.

"The one you had before. The last time we were ashore," Sturmsi said as she looked at him.

Smee scratched his head in confusion as he returned her gaze with a look in his eyes that revealed the emptiness of his head.

Sturmsi sighed as she closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them again to glare at Smee. "You know," she prodded, crossing her arms, "the one you were looking at when we got lost?"

"Oh! Right!" Smee replied as his eyes lit up with recognition at the word "lost", and he began fumbling around in his pockets. Finally, he pulled out the folded piece of paper and opened it up for Sturmsi as he held it out to her. "Be this the one you'ere askin' about, Ma'am?"

"Aye, that's it," Sturmsi replied as she wrinkled her nose at the funny images that were printed on the paper. "Where did you get it?"

"Eh, um..." Smee trailed off as he lowered the map as he thought, trying to remember where indeed he had gotten it. "Why, I can't seem to remember," he admitted.

"Are you sure?" Sturmsi questioned him.

"Well..." Smee replied, looking up at her as he stood slightly hunched over. "Now that I think about it, Capt'n, I think I'd just awoken with it in me pocket one morn. And I didn't remember where I'd gotten it then either. Aye, to be sure. Mayhap I got it from one of those wee folk at Small Monday fair, but I'll be banjaxed, I can't remember if'n I e'er done so."

"Hmm," Sturmsi replied as she rubbed her chin. "Do you mind if I have it?"

"Oh, sure, Cap'tn, to be sure," Smee replied as he happily handed the map to Sturmsi. "It ain't ne'ever done me any good anyway."

"Thanks," Sturmsi said as she took the map and looked at it curiously for a few moments. There was something that was strange about it, other than the odd effigy of Neverland that it appeared to be trying to depict. It actually made her feel funny when she looked at it, which intrigued her. Then she folded it back up and stuffed it in the inside breast pocket of her jacket. "Now, let's..." she began as she started to move towards the treeline, but then she halted. "Oh, wait," she said as she just remembered something. "We're being watched." Then she glared at the spot in the bushes were Tootles was still hiding. "There," she added as she pointed in his direction with her finger so that Smee would look there as well.

Smee didn't see anything, of course, but he didn't bother to say so as Sturmsi began walking towards the spot that she was continuing to point at, and he followed her.

Tootles, meanwhile, sat in place, frozen with fear like a deer in a spotlight as he looked into the shiny eyes of the one who was approaching him, not understanding how she saw him.

"Who's there?" Sturmsi called out as she continued to approach the bushes. "Come out! I know you're there. Quit hiding like a rat and show yourself!"

This reminded Tootles about what a coward he was, and it made him angry with himself. He shot up out of the bushes and into the air overhead, but stopped short of flying away. Instead, he stayed hovering at what he hoped was a safe distance from the newcomer as she stopped a few feet in front of the bushes and looked up at him, lowering her finger.

"Oh, that be one of those young scalawags of Peter Pan's," Smee informed her. "Quite a trouble-maker he is, Ma'am, to be sure."

"Peter Pan..." Sturmsi murmured as she remembered the boy whom she'd caught on her ship not too long ago. "Yes, I remember him, for he's already made a trespass on my ship, unannounced and unwelcomed, getting into things he shouldn't."

"Oh, aye, Capt'n. That sounds just like him, it does," Smee replied solemnly. "Always apesterin' my poor capt'n on the _Roger_ he is too."

"What is your name?" Sturmsi asked the flying boy curiously as she noted his funny panda-like appearance.

"I'm Tootles!" he replied, trying to mask the fear in his voice with feigned bravery. "And wh-who are you?"

"I am Sturmsi, captain of der _Bestrafer_," she told him.

"What do you want?" Tootles questioned her.

Sturmsi thought about that. That was a good question. Then she came up with an answer. "Right now, I would like to know how you can fly, seeing as you have no wings."

Tootles thought twice about answering that question, but he decided it wouldn't do any harm. "Fairy magic," he replied.

"What? There are fairies here too?" Sturmsi questioned further as she squinted at Tootles in disbelief before realizing that she shouldn't be so surprised to learn that this might be the truth as she recalled the mermaid and looked at the boy that was floating in midair right in front of her.

"Aye, Capt'n Sturmsi, there be all sorts of gombeens such as that muckin' around in this doolally place, to be sure," Smee answered.

"Yeah, so?" Tootles replied, not wanting to give her any more information, although he realized that Smee would probably fill her in on everything he knew about the island, since it appeared to him that they were friends.

"You know...something is just not right about this place," Sturmsi said quietly, though she said it more to herself than either of the other two people who were listening to her.

"W-what do you mean by that?" asked Tootles.

Sturmsi looked up at him and smiled in a way that freaked him out quite a bit. "You smell funny," she told him. Then her face started to change in a way that freaked him out even more.

That's when Tootles realized that he was looking at the same thing that had killed the mermaid he'd found dead on this very shore not that long ago, and he was beset with the images of it's mutilated corpse. With a gasp of disgust and fear, he turned away from Sturmsi and flew back towards the underground house as fast as he could go, and he moved as though he was trying to outrun the very devil while it was only her demonic laughter that bothered to chase him.

- - - - - -

When Tootles made it back to the underground house, he found that all of the other boys had also returned for breakfast and were already halfway finished eating it.

"Tootles!" Wendy greeted him with cheer in her voice but concern on her face. "I was getting worried about you. Come and eat some breakfast before it gets cold."

Tootles quietly sat down at the table and the smell of the food eased his mind while agitating his stomach. He felt like he was starving. Wendy served him three Neverberry pancakes with extra butter and syrup.

Tootles looked up at her gratefully while she did this and she just smiled back at him while he started to dig in.

After he had cleaned his plate, which took less than five minutes, the rest of the boys had finished their meals and were preparing to go back outside for some more adventuring. "Peter!" Tootles called out, just as Peter was about to take off again.

"What is it, Tootles?" Peter asked with an apathetic expression as he halted by the door, not wanting to be held up by whatever boring thing that Tootles had to say, but stopping himself anyway just in case it wasn't as boring as he expected it to be.

"I saw someone on the beach with Bosun Smee," Tootles informed him, as if it was the most important thing he'd ever said in his life.

"So what?" Peter asked with annoyance as he kept his back turned to the shorter, fatter boy. "Unless it was Captain Hook, I couldn't care less."

"No, it wasn't Captain Hook, but that's just it," Tootles continued insistently. "It was a woman. Sort of. It was that, um, thing that killed the mermaid, I know it! And Smee was with her, and he gave her some kind of map."

"Hmm," Peter replied as he turned the rest of the way around to actually face Tootles. "That is kind of strange, now that I think about it. Where did you see them?"

"It was at the same place where I found the dead mermaid," Tootles replied.

"I'll go check it out!" Peter cried suddenly, and with that, he flew out the doorway so fast that the air he sucked out of the room with him felt like the wind of a storm to those who were left in his wake. The other boys just looked at each other curiously, some of them shrugging, as they decided not to follow Peter right now since they were weighed down by their full stomachs, as well as so tried of playing pirates that real pirates were the very last things that they wanted to see just then.

Peter arrived at the beach in no time, and in just enough time to catch Sturmsi and Smee leaving the shore in their noisy but fast moving boat. Peter flew out over the water to follow them just as they disappeared around the bend of the shoreline. And when Peter got to that point, he saw that they were heading straight for the _Bestrafer_. They were moving even faster now, which was quite fast indeed, but Peter knew that he could easily catch up to them if he really wanted. And part of him did want to do just that, to try and find out what they had been up to, but something held him back. So he just hovered in place as he watched the boat recede in the distance until it got to the point where, from his viewpoint, the visage of the smaller boat became superimposed over the visage of its mothership.

That was when Peter just turned away and started heading back home again. Looking at that ship made him feel weird, especially now, and he had no desire to get near it again for the time being. Not until he had figured out what was wrong with him, what was causing his strange, recurring nightmares and bouts of sleep paralysis. Though he knew that the answer might very well lie within the ship itself, he was not ready to go back there. And he wasn't sure when he ever would be. He didn't even feel up to facing Hook right now, at least not the real one. So, for now, he would just play pirates with his friends. And that's exactly what he intended to do right then, with whoever he could get to along with it, to get his mind off the things that he didn't like thinking about, by simply pretending that everything was the way it was supposed to be. Make-believe was the only thing that made him feel better during times like this, that was the way it had always been for him, and it was all that he'd ever needed anyway.

- - - - - -

Exactly two weeks after Smee had boarded der _Bestrafer_, Sturmsi kept her promise to Hook, although she was reluctant to do so. But one thing she didn't like to do was break her promises, however tempted to do so she might be. So, the previous night, she had Smee pack up his things and return all of the items that he'd been issued during his stay aboard her ship. Then, bright an early the next morning, she sounded the horn to let Hook know that she was coming. With Freddy at the tiller of the motorboat again, she accompanied Smee on his journey back home.

Hook stood ready and he watched their approach from the railing of his ship as he stood on the deck alone with his arms crossed over his chest and a scowl etched upon his face. Then, as they came up to the hull, he let out a sigh of frustration before going to the rope ladder that was coiled neatly on the deck to pick it up and throw the end of it overboard so that it fell down into the water directly in font of the boat. He did this himself because, currently, he had all the rest of the men strung up in chains down in the brig for having tried to commit mutiny in Smee's absence. Hook had just barely been able to keep himself from killing them all, both during and after the skirmish, for if he did that, then he wouldn't have any means by which to sail the _Roger_ out of Neverland when the day of Peter Pan's demise had finally come, a day that he still fully believed that he would live to see. Eventually, he would let them out, hoping that they had learned their lesson, for he had given them all quite a sound thrashing. Mullins, in particular, had been beaten to within an inch of his life. And now old Smee would be back to help keep them in line too, and ease some of the captain's burden as well as his paranoia of the other, much less trustworthy pirates. Not that Hook planned to show the bosun any manner of gratitude for this, mind you, besides forgiving him of his stupidity by simply letting him live. He rather planned to have everything go back to just the way it had been before. Though it was quite a sad state of existence, Hook thought, it would have to suffice until after Peter Pan had finally gotten what he had coming to him.

When Smee had climbed far enough up the ladder for Hook to reach him, the captain absently mimicked what he had seen Sturmsi do on the _Bestrafer_, though he didn't realize it. He reached down with his hand and grabbed the back of Smee's shirt to haul him the rest of the way up, though he did it a lot more roughly than Sturmsi had done earlier. Then he tossed him aside so that he fell on the deck behind him as he went back to the railing to glare down at Sturmsi, who only returned his hate-filled gaze with a blank one. Without a word, and without turning her head, she motioned for Freddy to get them back to the _Bestrafer_. He complied, and as the boat turned around, Sturmsi turned as well so that she could continue facing Hook while they left. Hook watched her go and began to feel a bit better as her form grew smaller to him in the distance.

Finally, once he could no longer look at Sturmsi without also looking at the _Bestrafer_ at the same time, Hook turned around to look down at Smee, who currently remained seated on the deck where he had been thrown, too fearful to get back up again until he had been given permission to do so.

"Look alive, Smee," Hook commanded him with a seething growl.

"Oh, aye, aye, Captain!" Smee cried as he frantically got back to his feet and stood at attention, rigid with fear because he sensed the captain's extremely foul mood, and he made an equally-fearful salute by drawing his hand up the side of his body and his face before planting it to his forehead. And he bent backwards as the captain approached him with what sounded more like a hiss than a sigh, trying to keep as much distance between them as he could while suppressing both the urges to cringe and to step back away from him, knowing that would just irritate him even further. "I-is everything alright, Sir?" he managed to ask in a small, squeaky voice that sounded utterly pathetic, though his eyes held an amount of true concern for the captain that was equal to the fear that they were also filled with.

"No, Smeeee...I'm afraid I must report that there have been a few..._complications_, while you were away," Hook said, and the words oozed from his lips like poison as he bent down to bring his face right next to Smee's, as though this was all the bosun's fault. In a way, Hook actually thought that it was, though he knew that it was in no way intentional on the little Irishman's part. Nonetheless, he had to take out his burgeoning frustration on _someone_, lest he would explode and do something that he _might_ regret doing later, and Smee was the only one in his vicinity at the moment who was in good enough shape to handle it.

Smee charily lowered his hand back down to his side as he continued to face the captain, and that was the only thing that he dared to move right now. "Eh...but, uh, Sir...what sort of, eh...complimications...?"

Hook let out a fierce growl and stuck his fist into Smee's chest, hard enough that it would leave a bruise there, and he bunched the front of Smee's shirt into it and jerked him even closer, causing Smee to yelp in terror.

"There was an attempted mutiny," Hook informed him in a voice that sounded strangely like a quiet roar, grinding his teeth as capillaries popped out in the whites of his eyes and then his pupils also turned red as he recalled the event. "Led by Mullins, of course."

"W-well, Capt'n, I-I've tried to tell ye, Sir, th-that Mr. Mullins, well, he-" Smee stammered nervously, only to be cut off by a sound that Hook made that wasn't quiet, and then Smee did cringe as well as whimper at the noise. None of the sounds that he had heard while aboard der _Bestrafer_ scared him nearly as much as that one did.

Then Hook straightened himself and moved towards the hatch of the brig, dragging Smee with him by the front of his shirt. When they got to it, Hook let him go and then reached his hand inside his coat to pull out his cat-o-nine.

Fearing that he was about to be lashed with it, Smee held his hands in front of his face defensively while maintaining a cowering position in front of Hook. But, instead, he found the thing being shoved rudely into his already sore chest.

"Take it, you sniveling cur!" Hook barked at him furiously as he gouged Smee with the object even harder, which was his way of trying to hand it to him. "Or else I _will_ sting you with it!"

Reluctantly, Smee grasped the whip with both of his hands as Hook released it. Then he looked up at the captain with a dazed expression, as if he had no idea what he was supposed to do with it.

"All the men are chained up down there, and have been for going on four days now," Hook told him as he pointed at the hatch that lead down into the brig just below them. "Now get down there and let the scugs out. But should any one of them utter so much as one peep of dissent about _anything_ whatsoever, you are to lash the insolent jackanapes to his very bones! And do keep in mind that I won't be tolerating any of your typical poltroonery on this matter. You will do for me as well as you did for Sturmsi. Do I make myself clear?"

"A-aye-aye, Captain! I-if that's what ye want, Sir! So it is, to be sure!" Smee responded frantically with another hasty salute, and though his voice wavered at the thought of having to lash any of his already beaten-up shipmates down to their very bones, the look in his eyes indicated that he was ready to do anything at this point to appease the captain, no matter how cruel it was.

"Good," Hook replied with a sneer. "Now, I'm going to search my bunk, for I have not been able to get one decent night's rest for the past two weeks!" And with that, Hook turned about and began stomping towards his cabin. Then he halted and spun around to look at Smee again, who had just turned away from him to make his way down into the brig as ordered. "Oh, and, uh, Bosun Smee?" the captain called to him, making him pause.

"Yes, Capt'n?" Smee responded with feigned cheeriness to disguise his dread.

"I should also advise you not to disturb me for the rest of the night, not unless there is a _dire_ emergency," Hook said. "And I _really_ do mean it. I trust you understand?"

"Aye, Captain," Smee replied with a gulp, getting the point.

And without another word, Hook went into his cabin, slammed the door behind him, and locked it, having absolutely no desire to look at anyone until well into the next day, after he'd gotten at least twelve full hours of sleep.

* * * * * *


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

It had been several months since the _Bestrafer_ had departed from Neverland and Captain Hook had decided, for real this time, that he was going to do the same. He'd come to the conclusion that Peter Pan really was immortal after all and therefore it was, in fact, totally impossible for him to be killed. As a result, Hook had finally given up on that fruitless endeavor once and for all. He'd even told Pan of this fact right to his face, as much as it had pained him to do so, in the hopes that he'd be left alone by the wretched youth and his fiendishly infantile friends. However, rather than persuading him to relent his abusive games it had only spurred him to redouble his already overly successful efforts to be a nauseating nuisance to all of the pirates. Hook had then realized that Pan didn't want a truce with him at all, even if he himself did, nor did the boy ever want him to leave his cursed domain. Rather, the flying imp wanted the pirate captain to remain with him in Neverland forever so that he would be able to continue to torment him and his crew every day and night for the rest of eternity. Neverland was, indeed, their own personal section of Hell. That knowledge had solidified Hook's decision to vacate the premises posthaste regardless of the boy's additional attempts to kindle his ire and goad him into staying to continue his pointless pursuit of vengeance, which was but a ruse to trick him into remaining trapped there forever by his own inability to just let go of the vendetta. To make matters even worse, the hellion's puerile pranks had not only resumed their former frequency of occurrence but also increased in their intensity once Captain Sturmsirene had abandoned the area in her scabrous scow, something that actually made Hook, as much as he hated to admit it, wish that she would come back. She was the only being whom Peter Pan had ever truly feared and her presence in the bay had caused him to steer quite well away from it until she'd gone away. And now that she was gone, there was nothing to deter Pan from attacking Hook's ship at any time of the day or night as often as he pleased and it was as if being deprived of that perverse pleasure for so long had instilled within him a pent-up desire to make up for lost time by tripling the number of his regular visitations. It had become far too much for Hook to bear at this point and so he ordered his minions to prepare the ship so that they could embark on the long voyage back home to Blighty, at long last. Upon receiving this order, the crew began to work together to carry it out with a surprisingly satisfying degree of motivation and sense of teamwork that Hook had never before seen them put forth and he vowed not to disappoint them by changing his mind about this decision as he'd done so often in the past. No, he wouldn't do that again, not this time. He was _done_ with Peter Pan.

The pirates had finished with their preparations and as soon as the wind was right the anchor was hoisted and the sails were unfurled so that they caught the stiff breeze and then the _Jolly Roger_ was pushed out of Kidd's Creek Bay and into the open sea beyond it as her crew finally set sail for the Spanish Main, something that they all had been longing to do for what already seemed like an eternity.

- - - - - -

Peter, of course, was furious when he saw the pirates leaving and he hovered over the empty spot of water near Hook Island where their ship had sat for so long. His face bore a perplexed and frustrated expression as he tried to think of some way to stop them while Tinker Bell floated in the air right next to him. She, of course, was greatly relieved and gratified by their departure, which was something that she had longed for as well, mainly because it meant that there would be no more pirate stories for Peter to delight Wendy with. It was quite early in the morning yet and the rest of the Lost Boys and Wendy had still been fast asleep in the underground house when Peter and his fairy had left to start their daily rounds and they had made it to Kidd's Creek Bay just in time to catch the pirates leaving it.

"What does Hook think he's _doing_? That old codfish can't _leave_!" Peter insisted vehemently.

"Why ever not, Peter? I say good riddance to bad rubbish!" replied Tinker Bell smugly.

"Without Hook there will be no real danger in Neverland, Tink," Peter explained. "You know that! And what fun is a safe Neverland?"

"Saucepans and skillets, Peter!" Tink cried in frustration. "You were having _plenty_ of fun in Neverland long before those filthy pirates came here and started _ruining_ everything! Don't you remember?"

"No, I don't! I've got to do something!" Peter replied frantically. "I know! I'll fly over there and cut their sails down!" And with that he took off, flying towards the _Jolly Roger_ at full speed, determined to do exactly what he'd just said before the pirates got too far away from Neverland.

"Oh no you don't!" Tink called after him and she clapped her tiny hands together one time, instantly revoking Peter's ability to fly, which caused him to fall out of the sky very suddenly and land with a great splash in the seawater just below him.

Peter had been going fast enough that the abrupt decent he was forced to experience just then caused him to hit the surface of the water quite forcefully and he immediately became submerged several feet under the spot where he'd landed. He quickly regained the surface, however, and spat out a mouthful of the brine before he started breathing again with a gasp. "Tink!" he called angrily as he floundered in the water. He was an excellent swimmer, with or without magic to aid him, but the unexpected dunk had flustered him quite a bit. Tinker Bell had only ever revoked his flying ability once before, a very long time ago, and he could hardly believe that she'd done it again now. "How DARE you!" he screamed at her.

"Enough is enough, you silly ASS!" Tink scolded Peter as she hovered several inches above his head. "I, for one, have had quite enough of that band of deep-sea dunderheads! Let them go! Neverland will be _much_ better off without them! You'll see!"

"Awww, Tiii-iiink!" Peter groaned childishly. But then he realized that Tink was serious and she wasn't going to let him have his way this time no matter how much he whined about it. He also knew that if he angered her enough she might just leave him alone in the bay to fend for himself and he noticed that it would be quite a long swim to the shore from where he was. "Gah, FINE! Let them leave then! I don't need them anyway!" he hollered reluctantly as he splashed his hands down into the water beside him as hard as he could to further convey his displeasure. "Now sprinkle me so I can get out of this stupid water!" he fervently demanded.

"I will, but only if you _promise_ you won't try to go after those pirates, Peter Pan!" Tink replied scornfully.

"Ok, already! I promise! Now _please_, Tink, before the croc comes or something!" Peter insisted urgently. It's not that he was really afraid of the croc or anything else that might be under the water, and he knew that he could swim to the shore if need be, it's just that he HATED not being able to fly.

"Alright then, here you go!" Tink responded and with that she reached into the tiny pouch that she kept tied to her hip and pulled out a handful of fairydust which she then sprinkled on top of Peter's head, restoring his ability to fly in seconds, and then she flew several feet away as fast as she could because she knew what was coming next and she didn't want her wings to get wet.

Peter shot up out of the water as soon as he was able to and shook himself like a wet dog in midair, his anger being sloughed off along with the rain of droplets that came off of him in the process. "Thanks, Tink," he said with genuine appreciation. He might even have crowed just then if it hadn't been for the other negative emotion that suddenly overtook him and stifled the urge. He turned and watched with growing sadness as the _Jolly Roger_ began to fade off into the distance.

"I'm sorry I had to do that, Peter," Tink assured him, "but you've formed an unhealthy attachment to those pirates and it's caused you to become far too reliant upon them for your happiness. It's time for them to leave and it's time for you to let them go. Trust me."

Peter continued to watch the receding brig in silence as it sailed away from Neverland and he sighed heavily when it finally disappeared over the horizon, never to be seen again for all he knew. Never before in his life had he felt quite as much pure sorrow as he did at that moment. He also felt guilty for having pushed Hook too far. He should have known the old codfish could only take so much abuse before he just stopped caring. He silently cursed himself for having ignored the warning signs before it was too late. A lone tear escaped from Peter's right eye then and it ran down his face to drop into the seawater below him. And with that, the intense sadness he felt started to abate quite rapidly as it was replaced with a new sense of hope. "He'll be back. You'll see. I know it. He'll come back when we least expect it and then we can start all over again! In the meantime there are other games to be played! I know...maybe we'll pay a visit to the Ice King! Hahaha! Good old King Kyr-"

"NOOO PETER!!" Tink screamed at the top of her lungs as she rushed over to Peter's mouth and pushed both of her hands against his lips as hard as she could to keep him from finishing the Ice King's name, because saying his name (which was Kyros) out loud caused him to appear right before whoever it was that said it and he tended to get rather cranky when that happened. And being the powerful Ice King that he was, it was not a good idea to piss him off by summoning him so frivolously.

Instead of finishing the syllable, Peter just laughed instead, blowing Tink away from his mouth with the force of it. "Oh, Tink, where's your sense of adventure?" he chided.

"Oh, Peter," Tink replied wearily, "all I want to do right now is relax and enjoy this day with a carefree celebration! Just for once. _Please_?"

"Oh, all right," Peter conceded. "Come on then, let's go back to the underground house and see what Wendy and the Lost Boys are doing. They should be up by now and if they're not then we'll _make_ them get up!" And with that, he headed back towards the shore as he flew out of the desolate bay, now fully content to look forward to the new adventures that awaited him instead of grieving over the loss of the pirates.

Tink followed Peter in hot pursuit, determined to keep him out of trouble for the rest of the day at least. She thought that since the pirates were gone for good her job would be a lot easier now. But then again, she could be wrong...and in more ways than one.

- - - - - -

Several weeks later, the _Jolly Roger_ was still at sea. Her crew of pirates had not sighted land of any sort since their departure from Neverland and that made no sense to them. They had planned to make a pit stop in Tortuga before continuing onwards to Europe and they definitely should have been there by now but, for some reason that they did not understand, they were not. Even more troubling was the fact that by that time they should have sighted at least some kind of land, any kind, and yet still they had not.

Captain Hook studied his charts, his compass, the sun, the moon, and the stars fervently as he tried to figure out what the problem was, but no answers came. The ocean stretched on indefinitely from all points around his ship as far as the eye could see, with or without a telescope, and it was beginning to feel as though the rest of the world had simply up and vanished on them.

As the days wore on and their provisions became dangerously depleted, the crew became more and more desperate to find land, even if it was nothing more than a simple desert isle from which they could restock some of their supplies, and they began watching the sky for any birds that might lead them to such a place. But there were none at all to be seen. Nor had any whales or any other traces of marine life been spotted in the surrounding expanse of seawater as they journeyed on through it. They'd even tried to attract some sharks with a barrel of pickled Neverherring that had gone bad and had become too rancid for even the strongest of stomachs to keep down but it was a futile endeavor.

It was as if even the very ocean itself had become devoid of life altogether. Hook pondered this and it disturbed him quite a bit. Something that Sturmsi had once said to him echoed in his mind then..._I prowl through the timeless expanses of dead oceans that exist between what you know as reality_...and it chilled him to the bone. What if they were caught in such a place? How would they ever get out of a waterway that only demons stood a chance of successfully navigating? They weren't likely to stand much of a chance at all if that were the case. But Hook was nowhere near ready to give up yet and he refrained from voicing that dreadful theory aloud so that it wouldn't put additional strain on his crew's already fraying nerves.

It did, however, get to the point where the other pirates actually began to seriously consider trying to go back to Neverland. By that time, Mullins had informed the rest of the crew about his belief that they had become trapped inside the Bermuda Triangle and likely would not be able to find their way out no matter what direction they tried to go in. But if Neverland was inside the Bermuda Triangle, as he surmised, then maybe they would be able to find it again, at least, if they turned around and went back exactly the way they'd come, or as close to exactly as could be managed. Not that he wanted to do that but he thought it best to at least mention the idea in case worse came to worse. Of course, Hook had scoffed at that idea initially and had chastised anyone who dared to speak in favor of it. He said that he'd prefer to die of starvation before catching sight of that accursed archipelago again; he'd walk through the gates of Perdition before turning back; hell, he'd take a long walk down Johnny plank before doing it!

But as their situation became more and more grim with each passing day, the thought of seeing Neverland again became less and less abhorrent to Hook, a fact that was, in and of itself, an even greater abhorrence to him. But it could not be helped. Finally, after Smee had informed him that the rest of the crewmen were beginning to foment mutiny over it, he grudgingly conceded to the idea and ordered the bosun to turn the ship around so that they could start heading back the way they'd come, which he did as the rest of the crew adjusted the sails to compensate with the wind accordingly. As for Mullins, as much as he hated that place and dry land in general, even he found himself looking forward to seeing it again, longed for it eventually, and it actually got to the point where he told the rest of the crew that if they did make it back to Neverland (or any land) the first thing that he would do is go ashore, kneel to the ground, and kiss the dry sand on the beach, which was something that the mere thought of would literally have made him puke his guts out not so long ago because of his acute landsickness.

But then something really strange happened that dashed even that last shred of hope they'd all been clinging to. All of a sudden, and for no apparent reason, the ship's compass went doolally tap as its needle began to spin around aimlessly on its bearing and then it wouldn't stop doing that. Now they were really screwed. They tried to maintain their sense of direction and stay on the proper course by keeping a constant vigil on the sun and the stars but it didn't seem to do them any good. Whether they wanted to admit it or not, they were officially and undeniably lost at sea and, even worse, it was not even a normal sea - it was one that was bewitched.

Not long after that their food supply ran out completely and the crew began to suffer from bouts of delirium as starvation began to gradually take its toll on their bodies as well as their minds. Even Hook went a little off-kilter one day and he stood out on the maindeck in his underwear and screamed up at the sky, saying that if he ever got back to Neverland the first thing he would do when he got a hold of Peter Pan was to give him a big fat kiss right on the lips. _Then_ he would eviscerate him.

Then Billy Jukes was beset with a serious illness, a blood infection of some kind that spread rapidly throughout his body, and he collapsed to the deck with a dangerously high fever. Mullins carried him into the fo'c'sle and put him to bed and tried to tend to him as best as he could but his condition steadily worsened day by day. The boy was given regular doses of quinine, the only semblance of medication that they had on board at the time, but it didn't seem to help much, if at all. Mullins could only try to make him as comfortable as possible as he watched the only real friend that he'd ever had on the ship begin to die a slow and agonizing death, slipping in an out of consciousness at random times.

Some time later, Smee fearfully informed the captain that he'd overheard the other men discussing the possibility that they might have to resort to drawing straws pretty soon in order to sacrifice someone that would be cannibalized in order to keep the others alive. This enraged Hook and he ordered the bosun to muster the men on deck right away so that he could give them all a little talking to. Soon they were all standing before the captain, with the exception of Jukes, who could no longer get out of bed, which Hook was rather grateful for at that particular moment as he considered it a small mercy that the youth would be spared having to be subjected to a discussion about the idea of eating a fellow shipmate. He told his men that there would be no such abhorrence committed on his ship. However, he also told them that, hypothetically, if he happened to change his mind about that, there would be no drawing of straws to determine who the victim would be - _he_ would be the one to decide that and _he_ would take that responsibility completely upon himself. And although he didn't voice this aloud, he had already decided who that individual was going to be, if it came down to it. Cookson, that pilfering potbelly, that filching fatass...Hook just knew that greasy Greek glutton had been taking more than his allotted share of the rations when they'd still had edible food on board despite his immensely superior stores of fat when compared with the rest of the crewmen, especially poor old Smee, who by now was severely atrophied to the point that he looked like a walking skeleton and had begun to experience palpitations in his heart as a result. So, if worse came to worse, Hook concluded that the most just course of action, the lesser evil, as it were, would be to have that insolent kitchener repay the debt that he owed by literally giving back what he'd unfairly taken...in the form of his own lard-ridden flesh, if need be.

Hook tried to push the thought out of his mind after that, but it kept coming back to him as he became more and more ravenous with each passing minute of every continuing day. He began to have tantalizing visions of a roasted pig on a platter with an apple stuck in his mouth. The vision then became a full-blown hallucination as he thought that he could actually smell it when he saw the beckoning feast sitting upon the table in his cabin. It made his mouth water uncontrollably and he began to froth at the mouth like a rabid dog every time that he was beset with it. Soon the visage of the pig began to look more and more like Cookson and vice-versa every single time that he looked at the man. To make matters worse, there hadn't been any rain showers for the past couple of weeks and now the stores of fresh water were all but gone, adding thirst to the pirates' already unbearable state of hunger, and Hook then also began to envision himself drinking Cookson's blood from a wineglass as he dined upon his tender, juicy, pork-like flesh. Finally, he could hold himself back no longer and one day, early in the morning right after he'd awakened from an especially pleasant dream about eating Cookson, he ordered Mullins and Mason to secure the man in the brig without giving them the reason why. Later on, after some serious deliberations with himself, Hook mustered the four other pirates who were still able-bodied on deck and informed them that if they did not sight land by high noon of the following day then he was going to dispatch Cookson by hanging. Then he was going to dress the carcass and prepare the meat himself, which he would sup on the following night and then share with the rest of the crew if they wanted any after he'd had his fill of it. He also explained to them the reason why he'd chosen Cookson in order to help alleviate some of the guilt that the other men might experience by participating in this atrocious act, as well as his own, and to prevent them from harboring too much pity for their condemned shipmate who had now officially been reduced to a piece of livestock. Then he dismissed them all except for Mullins, who was taken aside for a moment by the captain and was told that he would be given a special helping of the meat to feed to Jukes in case that it might help him regain some of his strength, but he was forbidden to say whence the sustenance had been derived. If Jukes lived to see land again he would find out the truth then, one way or another, after he'd recovered, and Hook had decided that the sickly whelp needn't be burdened with that knowledge in the meantime.

The following day, high noon came and, as expected, no land had been spotted. Hook stood at the portside railing of the ship and gazed at the empty horizon that lie beyond it, preparing himself for what he was about to do. He came to the conclusion that it would cause him no remorse. A man had to do what a man had to do and there was a sort of perverse justice in it that rather pleased him the more he thought about it. The rest of the men were below deck except for Smee, who was sitting upon an empty crate near the capstan with a severely haggard expression on his face as he concentrated on breathing, a task that had now become a rather arduous one for him. Hook noticed this as he was making his way toward the hatch to go and bring his ex-cook out of the brig for his execution and he made a detour and walked over to his ever-faithful bosun instead. Smee didn't seem to notice his presence though even as the captain knelt down before him to get a closer look at him and Hook saw that his eyes were listless and didn't even react to the movement of his claw as he waved it right in front of his face to get his attention. Hook tried calling his name then and still he didn't respond. Then Hook grabbed his shoulder with his hand and shook him brusquely, trying to snap him out of his daze. That caused Smee to start mumbling something strange in between labored breaths as if he was in a trance and Hook found himself unwilling to interrupt it when he recognized it as an elaborate poem.

"On the ocean that hollows the rocks where ye dwell a shadowy land has appeared as they tell; men thought it a region of sunshine and rest and they called it Hy-Brasail, the Isle of the Blest. From year unto year on the ocean's blue rim the beautiful specter showed lovely and dim; the golden clouds curtained the deep where it lay and it looked like an Eden, away far away. A peasant who heard of the wonderful tale, in breeze of the Orient loosened his sail; from Ara, the holy, he turned to the west, for though Ara was holy, Hy-Brasail was blest. He heard not the voices that called from the shore, he heard not the rising wind's menacing roar; home, kindred, and safety he left on that day and he sped to Hy-Brasail, away far away. Morn rose on the deep and that shadowy isle, o'er the faint rim of distance reflected its smile; noon burned on the wave and that shadowy shore seemed lovelily distant and faint as before. Lone evening came down on the wanderer's track and to Ara again he looked timidly back; oh, far on the verge of the ocean it lay, yet the Isle of the Blest was away far away. Rash dreamer, return; oh, ye winds of the main, bear him back to his own peaceful Ara again. Rash fool, for a vision of fanciful bliss, to barter thy calm life of labor and peace. The warning of reason was spoken in vain for he never revisited Ara again; night fell on the deep amidst tempest and spray and he died on the waters, away far away." And then Smee fell silent once again. It was a poem by Gerald Griffin about the mythical Isle of the Blest, or Hy-Brasail, the Irish version of Heaven in the afterlife, and a foolish man who'd gotten himself killed trying to sail to it. Smee had memorized it a long time ago when he was still young but had since forgotten that he knew it. Yet somehow it had been dredged up and had begun repeating itself over and over in his mind after he'd gone out of cognition.

"Wake up, you clabber-dungeon lummox!" Hook shouted at him angrily then, quite perturbed by Smee's odd and rather spooky state of delirium.

That did the trick and Smee came too immediately after hearing that familiar phrase. "Uh, aye, Capt'n?" he questioned attentively as he looked up at the captain and blinked his eyes, recoiling a bit as he was startled by Hook's sudden and inexplicable appearance right before him, as if he had just materialized out of thin air. Smee had been having a rather pleasant, if somewhat eerie, daydream or hallucination, or perhaps it was a premonition, in which he was floating peacefully on his back in a calm sea of shamrocks towards Hy-Brasail, and he was a little dismayed to have suddenly found himself back on the _Roger_ again and in a great deal of pain. However, he was glad to see Captain Hook again and he tried to convey that feeling at least with his eyes when he found that he was unable to even begin to verbally articulate the strange mixture of his conflicting emotions.

"Hang in there, Bosun. Don't give up. We're not through yet," Hook told him sternly, shaking his head as he refused to accept the idea of being defeated. He understood that Smee was just about ready to pay his last debt and kick the bucket. "I'll make sure you get an extra portion of our dinner tonight," he added reassuringly and he patted the dying man gently on the shoulder with his hand.

Smee just looked at him dully then, not seeming to comprehend what it was that Hook was talking about, and then his eyes became distant as they seemed to focus on the sky right past the captain's head.

Hook was about to turn away from him then and get back to the task at hand but then he noticed a marked change in Smee's expression - his eyes grew wide as they seemed to become affixed on something that was up in the sky overhead and his jaw dropped as the muscles in them went lax, then he raised his stick-like arm and pointed a bony finger up in the direction that he was looking.

"C...C-C...Ca-Ca-Calypso!" Smee stammered frantically.

Hook turned around and looked up into the sky then and he was so shocked by what he saw there that all thoughts of Cookson were instantly banished from his mind altogether. There was a black hole in the sky right above the _Roger_ and it had thick cords of dark gray clouds swirling around it in a counterclockwise circumnavigation. It looked like a giant whirlpool, or a tiny hurricane, and it seemed to be getting bigger by the second as the clouds expanded around it and began to fill the darkening sky in all directions simultaneously from the center of the strange vortex that, instead of sucking things in, was rather pushing stuff out of it. At the same time a fell wind suddenly hit the _Roger_, nearly knocking Hook off of his feet, and it quickly stirred the sea into a turbulent state, tussling the ship violently as the growing storm consumed every last visible part of the blue sky all the way to the horizon on all points around them.

The sudden disturbance seemed to perk Smee up a bit, giving him a second wind, as it were, and he was able to make it to the ship's bell and ring it loud and long enough to muster the rest of the men onto the deck so they could help to secure the sails before the ship was capsized by the violent winds and the massive waves that were being conjured by them while Hook took to the helm and tried to steer into the wind as much as possible, which was very hard to do since it kept changing directions quite abruptly every so often.

A blackness came forth from the vortex of the storm then and spread along the tendrils of the swirling mass around it like spreading veins of tar and the day was quickly turned into night as thunder cracked and boomed all over the place and soon the only illumination in the scarcely visible area came from the shards of lighting that constantly streaked across the otherwise pitch black sky in all directions as far as the eye could see around the ship.

And then the rain started, a heavy, driving rain that inundated the _Roger_ quite suddenly at full force as if the ship had just traversed under a gigantic waterfall and all of the men on the upper deck were instantly drenched by it. Smee, Mullins, Mason, and Starkey scrambled to batten down the hatches as fast as they could and just as they finished doing that, a massive bolt of lighting came down and struck the center of the mainmast, severing it in half, and the top section came crashing down to the deck below it like a tree that had just been felled by the single blow of a giant's great axe. It narrowly missed landing right on top of Starkey's head and smashing it like a pumpkin but both of his legs were pinned underneath it as he tried to get out of the way; he was driven to the deck and he let out a shrill cry of pain as a bone snapped in one of his trapped legs. Mason and Smee ran to his side and Mason was able to heave the broken mast up off of him just enough that Smee was able to drag the injured man out from under it and help him get clear of it just before Mason lost his grip on the heavy, wet pole and dropped it back down onto the deck.

The storm lasted for the rest of the day and raged on through the night and by the following day it still had not abated nor did it show any signs of doing so any time very soon. The four able men, Hook included, took shifts at the helm in order to keep the _Roger_ as steady as possible in the furious sea storm. Needless to say, things did not look good for the pirates at all now, as their situation had just gone from really bad to even worse. The rain at least provided them with some much-needed drinking water but that was their only consolation, and it was a rather small one in light of the fact that it probably wasn't going to make much of a difference to their ever-fleeting chance of survival. The roiling waves of the sea continually and mercilessly pummeled the _Roger_ as they crashed over her maindeck from both sides, seriously threatening to scupper the ship every few seconds and carry any man who was not properly secured before they hit to a certain and watery doom. Nonetheless, the men were still bound and determined to hold on for as long as they could, even if it was a futile effort. Mason had put a splint on Starkey's broken leg and fashioned him a makeshift crutch so that he could at least hobble around below deck and make use of himself as much as possible, chiefly by serving water rations to Jukes and Cookson and by making repairs to damaged ropes and netting. If the storm ever did let up and they happened to survive long enough to see that day then they would need plenty of rigging if they were going to attempt to get the mainsail operational again.

As the days wore on so did the mighty storm and the battered pirates were wearing down more and more in her fierce barrage. Even Hook was beginning to lose his will to keep fighting death. The situation seemed utterly hopeless, especially when the _Roger's_ hull began to spring several leaks at a time and the ship began to take in large quantities of water that overflowed the bilges and began creeping its way up into other sections of the ship, slowly sinking it. Mason, as the ship's carpenter, was taken off of the helm rotation, leaving the other three men to keep it manned without him, so that he could try to patch the leaks as fast as he could but he was quickly losing his ability to keep up with them. Hook even let Cookson out of the brig so that he could assist by bailing out some of the incoming water, since the storm had made the captain lose his appetite, not that it made much of a difference to either of them at that point. The ship itself was dying along with her crew and there was nothing they could do to stop it, only prolong the inevitable, and they were all at the frayed end of their rope.

It was around midnight of the sixth day since the storm had erupted and Smee had come to relieve Hook of his duty at the helm and start his shift of wrestling with it for the next eight solid hours. Hook didn't know what was keeping the man going. There was hardly anything left of him and yet he still managed to continue to put out and stand his watches right along with the rest of them. Mullins didn't look all that much better than he did but he did look better to a considerable degree and yet he seemed to have less energy than Smee did at that point. Hook had been rudely awakened several times now from his rest by the severe canting of the ship just in time to get up and go grab the helm and keep them from being capsized after Mullins had fallen asleep at the wheel but so far Smee hadn't done that once yet and twice Smee had even beaten the captain to the punch and Hook had found him already standing in at the helm next to a groggy Mullins when he'd gone to take it himself despite the fact that the captain's quarters were much closer and had easier access to it than did the crew's quarters way down in the fo'c'sle where Smee slept. It was perplexing. It was as if the storm was feeding him some of its own energy and he was channeling it somehow to not only stay alive but also to remain quite alert and functional despite everything they were beset with.

Smee dutifully stepped up to the helm next to Hook and held out his hands before him to indicate that he was prepared to take it from him, which Hook let him do without a word as he wearily staggered away from it. They had found that there wasn't any point in trying to speak over the raging storm when body language sufficed well enough to get one's point across - it wasn't worth the energy that it took to accomplish it. Although Hook was exceedingly weary at that moment he decided to refrain from retiring to his cabin just yet. Instead, he grabbed a robe that was tied to the capstan and coiled it tightly around his left arm, the one with the hand, and made is way over to the larboard railing of the ship, uncoiling the rope a piece at a time while keeping it taunt as he went so that he could stand near the side of the ship without being washed overboard. He gazed at the lightning that periodically bloomed in different spots on the horizon, hoping beyond hope that he might happen to see...well, anything, besides water that is. This storm reminded him a lot of the one that had originally brought them to Neverland although that one had only lasted for one night. So he hoped that eventually this one might lead them...somewhere, and before it completely destroyed them in the process.

It had been quite a while since Hook had looked at himself in the mirror. He was, in fact, afraid to do so at that point. He knew that he was becoming emaciated like the others, he could feel that, but he did not want to actually see it if he didn't have to and so he'd been refraining from doing it for the past several weeks, keeping his cloths on as much as possible and only changing them quickly in the darkness of his cabin so that he wouldn't have to catch the sight of his own deteriorating body. He didn't fully realize it, but if he were to look at himself naked in a full-length mirror right then he would be totally shocked and dismayed by what he saw. His condition was actually a lot worse than he thought it was and it was a small mercy that he remained unaware of the true severity of it.

Hook had just turned away from the water to make for his cabin so that he could try to get some rest while he still had a dry place to sleep when Mullins suddenly appeared on deck and startled the captain in place with his mere presence. It was odd because Mullins had a hard enough time getting up for his watches as it was, as well as staying awake through them, and it was many more hours yet before he had to take his next shift at the helm. Even stranger was the look that he had on his face just then and the fact that he was holding a spyglass. Hook watched the man curiously as Mullins made his way towards the larboard railing near the place where the captain was still standing without even bothering to ask for the rope and he didn't bother trying to hang on to anything else either. Mullins had the best sealegs of all the pirates on the _Roger_ by far, a fair enough trade for his intense case of landsickness that flared up every time he set foot ashore, and even in his current state of advanced deterioration he was able to keep his feet planted firmly on the violently tossing deck without any aid. He had been aroused by one of those tingling sensations that he usually got when something weird was about to happen and he began to scan the horizon off the port side of the ship as though he fully expected something to be out there somewhere.

Hook looked at him with a quizzical expression as he did this. "What in the name of Darby McGraw are you _doing_, Mullins?" he questioned him loudly enough to be heard over the crashing waves and the buffeting wind.

"I dunno, Sir!" Mullins yelled. "I just got a weird feelin' is all!"

"What do you expect to see out there?" Hook prodded.

Mullins just shrugged his shoulders and kept on searching. He really had no idea what he was looking for.

Then Hook felt something too. But it wasn't a tingling sensation. It was a soft vibration that was coming through the deck to his feet.

"Avast!" Mullins cried then. "Somethin's out there, about four points off port!" And with that he pointed in the direction as stated.

Hook snapped his head in that direction and looked hard but he saw nothing. Then he moved to stand next to Mullins so that he could get a better idea of where he was looking. "It's as black as a yard up a chimney out there, Mullins! How in Perdition can you see anything in that damned pitch?"

"Keep a weather eye out there, Capt'n, and you'll see it too," Mullins told him. "Wait for the lightin' to flare up in just the right spot. I only caught a glimpse of it for a split second but I know it's out there."

Hook kept on looking. "Do you feel that humming?" he asked then, wanting to make sure that it wasn't just his imagination.

Mullins lowered his spyglass and looked at the captain for a moment with his head cocked. "Now that you mention it..." he replied. He hadn't noticed it before but just then he did. Then he raised the spyglass again and resumed searching the water. "There!" he cried a few moments later, pointing frantically.

Hook turned his eyes that way just in time to catch a brief glimpse of something that seemed to block out a portion of a lightning bolt near the horizon; the shape was too high and irregular to be the horizon itself and it was too regular and solid to be a wave. There was something out there in the water but he wasn't yet sure what it could be. "What...? Is it land? An island?" Hook asked hopefully.

"Maybe, but I don't think so," Mullins replied. Whatever it was it had his hackles up.

Both of the men continued watching and waiting to catch another glimpse of the object, wanting desperately to at least know what it was. Whatever it was, it was the very first thing they'd sighted outside of their own ship for the past two months and it had both of them quite excited - Hook in a positive way and Mullins in a negative way. Hook was rather optimistic about it even though he knew that it could very well turn out to be nothing more than a large chunk of barren rock, an active volcano perhaps, which could possibly explain the vibrations that he felt, and although he had been more sensitive to the physical vibrations, he didn't have the extra degree of perception that Mullins did - and Mullins sensed that it was much more than that.

The humming they both felt began to turn into more than a sensation they felt in their feet as it also became a sound that they heard with their ears as well. It was akin to a distant and subdued roll of thunder except it was steady and continuous.

A few minutes later, several bolts of lightning flared up in a succession that illuminated a large patch of the sky for several moments directly beyond the object, by their vantage point, and revealed a large, blocky, and jagged silhouette that was eerily familiar to both of them.

"By old Pew's deadlights!" Hook cried in disbelief.

"I'll be boxed by Don Donelli..." Mullins said slowly. "It's that DEVIL SHIP!" he then cried in fear. Of all the things that he'd been hoping to see just then, the _Bestrafer_ was at the bottom of that list.

Hook wasn't sure why he was so surprised by it himself. Who else had he been expecting to meet out here in this cursed sea but Captain Sturmsi? "_I prowl through the timeless expanses of dead oceans that exist between what you know as reality in that cantankerous prison-hulk_..." she'd told him. And if this wasn't a "timeless expanse of dead ocean" then he didn't know what else could be. "Do you think she's spotted us?" he asked Mullins.

"Uh...I have no idea, Sir. I kinda hope she hasn't!" Mullins replied.

"Why ever not, you cowardly cur?" Hook questioned with contempt. "What's she going to do, come over here and crush us to death just for being here?"

"Uh, aye, Sir!" Mullins said with dire conviction.

Hook laughed at him. "And so what if she did? As it is now, we're not going to make it through the rest of this storm whether she does or not!"

"But, _Sir_, that devil ship has a MAW!" Mullins explained with bulging eyes. "You've seen it! There's no telling _where_ it leads to! I'd wager the soul of Blackbeard that it leads straight into Abaddon itself!"

"Nonsense, Mullins, you mush-brained molly-mort! It's just a _machine_!" Hook insisted vehemently. "It's a weapon, nothing more!"

"Oh, right, and I guess you think Capt'n Sturmsi's just a normal lady who gets a little too _cranky_ sometimes!" Mullins replied sarcastically. It's not that he'd forgotten his place or who he was talking to, it's just that, unlike Smee, he was a lot more afraid of Sturmsi than he was of Hook.

"Why, you pusillanimous popinjay!" Hook shouted and with that he grabbed Mullins by the front of his shirt with his claw, lifted him clean off the deck, and held him up to the angry sky above him. Even though he was emaciated, Hook still had plenty of strength left in him, especially when he was pissed off, and it was a lot more still than any of his crewmen had ever had even during the best of times, Mason included. "How about I just toss you overboard right now? Perhaps you'd prefer to take your chances with Davy Jones rather than Captain Sturmsi!"

"Uh...no, Sir! Please!" Mullins begged. "I...I..."

Just then there was a deafening blare that cut through the wind and the driving rain and completely drowned out the crashing of the waves for several seconds. It was the same sound that the pirates had heard the very first time they'd laid eyes on the _Bestrafer_, the day she'd first come to port in Neverland. While Hook and Mullins had been bickering with each other, she'd begun to close in on the _Roger_ and had gotten a lot closer to them than they'd expected her to be able to in that amount of time. She had indeed spotted them, somehow, and was plowing her way towards them through the massive waves quite steadily. And then all three of the men on deck were blinded when a bright white spotlight that's beam was large enough to engulf the _Roger_ even from its source's still far distance was shown upon them and they cringed away from it and cried in both pain and surprise at its shocking intensity. Hook dropped Mullins to the deck at his feet then so that he could use both of his arms to shield his face from the awful glare and Smee used one arm to cover his face while keeping the other on the helm. Mullins curled into a fetal position on the deck as he turned away from the railing and pressed his fists to his eyes to stop the light, which he thought for sure was the cold fire of Hell, from getting in them. Their eyes had become so adjusted to the darkness during the past six days that it would take several minutes for them to adjust to the light enough that they would be able to see anything at all around them and even then sunspots would continue to cloud their vision for some time afterward.

- - - - - -


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

Three days earlier, Captain Sturmsi had been reclining lazily on a tattered, stained-up blue felt couch in a dreary lounge-like compartment aboard the _Bestrafer_ as she watched one of her favorite anime shows on a large, beat up television set that was mounted in a dilapidated wooden entertainment center that sat upon the rust-laden deck in front of her when one of her crewmen had popped in to tell her something. It was Freddy. He'd come to tell her that there was something on the radar she might want to see, which he did after knocking a few times on the already opened door of the room and taking a few steps into it.

"God DAMN it, Freddy!" she'd snapped at the tall, gangly, disfigured effigy of a man that stood at the door and with a surly growl she bolted up to her knees on the couch and spun around to glare at him with a hellacious expression as she grasped the top edge of the couch's worn backing with both of her hands, curling her long, white fingers around it like the talons of a mutated vulture lighting upon a worn-out perch. Her piercing eyes flared with pulses of sickening greenish light as they stared at him from over the back of the couch and they seemed to become separate entities of their own as they bored into him in a discombobulating manner that caused him to cringe and turn his mottled, craggy face away from them. "Can't you SEE...that I am trying to watch..._Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo_?" she snarled him, her words dripping with venom. Then her glowing eyes narrowed at him menacingly. "You know very that I HATE to be bothered when I am watching _Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo_!" she barked at him.

Freddy had been with Sturmsi long enough to know that she wasn't seriously angered by his presence even though she certainly appeared to be. She was just playing around and she often got like this when she was bored or on edge for some reason. He also knew that if he didn't play along with her and at least pretend to take her seriously then she might get mad for real and then she might hurt him. So, after stifling a bemused smile that had threatened to appear on his face after hearing his exceptionally fearsome captain's flawless pronunciation of her beloved cartoon's exceptionally silly title, he obediently apologized for his intrusion and begged for her forgiveness while bowing his head solemnly. The genuflection seemed to placate her well enough and her gaze softened as she calmly asked him what it was that he wanted. He repeated the fact that he'd happen to glance at the radar a few minutes ago and had seen something rather unusual on it that he thought the captain might be interested in knowing about.

After regarding Freddy blankly for a few moments as if she was distracted by something else, maybe the cartoon that was still playing on the TV behind her, Sturmsi had suddenly leapt over the back of the couch like a great cat lunging after some manner of prey and made for the door. Her abrupt action caused Freddy to backpedal quickly out of the room and slam his back against the protruding bulkhead just outside of it in order to get the hell out of her way before she ran right over him. Sturmsi had slunk her way past him in a predatory manner and then she continued onward through the dark, winding corridors of the ship to her cabin with Freddy following cautiously behind her, giving her plenty of room just in case her tail might sprout suddenly to trash him soundly in her wake.

When she'd arrived to stand before the radar's display, Sturmsi clasped one of her hands to the top of the monitor's discolored housing as she studied its screen intently for several moments. There was nothing to be seen on it. Then she slowly turned her head around to look at Freddy, who was flanking her a few feet behind her right shoulder, and she fixed upon him an accusing glare of baleful annoyance. He hastily reiterated the fact that there had been something there, he swore to it, and he also said that it had been kind of faint so perhaps the storm was distorting the signal. He asked her to keep watching the screen in case the blip should happen to reappear after a few moments. And after a few moments it did, much to Freddy's relief, and even though the radar system emitted a distinct noise whenever something appeared on it and the captain was still standing right there looking at it, he still pointed at the dot anyway, quite enthusiastically too, just to make extra sure the captain saw it before it disappeared again, which it did after a few seconds.

"Hmm..." Sturmsi hummed with curiosity as she removed her hand from the monitor and used it to stroke her chin thoughtfully. Then she forced a brief smile at Freddy to show him that she wasn't irritated by him anymore before returning her stern gaze to the screen as she waited patiently for the blip to reappear again, if it even would. Whatever the object was, it was quite small and it was many miles off their planned heading. She wasn't sure that it would be worth a detour to investigate. But it was rather unusual and when it appeared on the screen again, she noticed that it seemed to call to her in a strange way, like a silent cry of distress. She thought of Pennywise then, the telepathic creature that had conversed with her during the attack of the Rundoonians in Neverland. He would be able to tell her what that thing was, if it was a ship with living people on it or whatever, but then he was sleeping soundly in his chamber in a deep section of the _Bestrafer_ where he took his little naps that often lasted for weeks on end. Sturmsi decided against trying to wake him, she hated asking him for his assistance anyway, and she made her way to the helm to alter course and begin making way for the lonely object that she sensed was lost and helpless in the turmoil it was beset with.

Finding it wasn't an easy task either because, whatever it was, it seemed to drift aimlessly in the stormy waters and only appeared briefly and fuzzily on the radar every few minutes or so in a completely new and random location and then faded out again, forcing Sturmsi to constantly and abruptly alter course in order to keep after it. Her clunky ship canted harshly to and fro in the belligerent sea as her hull was forced to violently break through the unusually resistant waves with the growingly numerous corrections that were being made to her heading and the _Bestrafer_ uttered deep, metallic groans that reverberated in all of her innumerable compartments as the abrasive noises were conducted by the massive quantities of oily, crust-laden pipes that snaked throughout the vessel like cadaverous veins. It was as if the storm or some other force was deliberately pushing the target away from the _Bestrafer_ just to keep Sturmsi from attaining it and it began to feel as though she was chasing a mirage in the watery desert. And yet it still seemed to call out to her in a desperately pleading way as though it was emitting a distress signal that only Sturmsi herself seemed to be picking up on. None of her crewmen seemed to notice it at all, which was not something that really surprised her; all of them were psychically very shortsighted, with the exception of Pennywise, who was currently out of cognition in one of his periodic deep slumbers that rendered him completely inert. "This is the work of Calypso," Sturmsi muttered with annoyance as she became more and more determined to beat the odds just for the sake of doing so if nothing else and she bore down her concentration on this strange challenge, gradually learning to compensate for the variations it presented her with, and began to steadily close the distance between her ship and the mysterious object that she sought to rendezvous with in the dead ocean. She had, in fact, become rather obsessed with it by that point.

Eventually, after three full days had passed with Sturmsi piloting the helm nonstop, the _Bestrafer_ got close enough to the object she was seeking that the blip it created on her radar began to appear more steadily and consistently. Sturmsi slowed her advance and had Freddy go up topside to begin scanning the surrounding water from the roof of the forecastle with a waterproofed telescope that was equipped with nightvision in order to spot it before they should happen to accidentally run over it and crush it to smithereens before they ever even got to discern its nature. The telescope was also equipped with a wireless adapter that transmitted the images of whatever it was pointed at to a computer monitor that was situated near the helm so that Sturmsi could look through it as well from her position and Freddy had a two-way radio that he used to communicate with the captain at will from his location while she used a microphone attached to the same computer that received the images from his telescope in order to respond to him. The images that she received in this manner were not quite as clear as the ones that Freddy got by looking directly through the telescope's lens and she needed to be able to communicate with him in case he saw something that she didn't while she continued to maintain control the ship from the inside. Finally, after many hours of continuous searching in the driving rain he did see something and, after he radioed it in to the captain, Sturmsi had him zoom in on it so that she could get a better look at it. And what she saw surprised her, shocked her even, when she realized what it was. The image was rather fuzzy and pixilated at the moment but she could tell that it was an archaic wooden sailing ship with a broken mast and it was just barely managing to stay afloat in the chaotic storm that was punishing it severely from all angles. In fact, Sturmsi didn't know how it was even possible that it was staying afloat at all in the barrage of waves that appeared to be more than capable of swallowing it whole and dragging it down to the bottomless depths that lie below it. It was perplexing. She ordered Freddy to keep his telescope trained on it as she quickly moved the _Bestrafer_ in for a closer look. Then she sounded the foghorn so that anyone on board the other ship, if there was anyone, would be alerted to her presence in case they weren't already aware of it and she trained the spotlight on it at the same time. The nightvision technology in the telescope automatically compensated for the addition of the light, which allowed it to present a clearer picture, and when Sturmsi caught sight of the ship's trademark bowsprit and its claw-like figurehead she recognized it as the _Jolly Roger_. And she could hardly believe it. "What in the hell is _that_ doing out _here_...and how in the _hell_ is she staying afloat?" she wondered out loud with genuine puzzlement. Just then Sturmsi felt a presence behind her. She turned around to see that it was Pennywise, who'd apparently been aroused from his sleep for some reason and had come up to her cabin for a visit with his captain.

"It's Hook," he told her. "He's the one who's keeping that ship from sinking, by his own sheer willpower. Otherwise, you'd never have even discovered that it was out here."

"So, he's alive then," Sturmsi muttered incredulously. "That's...amazing. What is he _doing_ out here anyway?"

"He was trying to...go home," replied Pennywise with a strange grin spreading on his pasty face. "But then he...got lost."

"Ha! Apparently so!" Sturmsi replied, slightly amused by the obvious understatement. "What about the others? Are any of them still alive?" she questioned.

"Yes. All seven still breath. But one, Billy Jukes, is seriously ill and fading fast," he explained. "It's not very likely that he will make it through the night."

"What about Smee? Is he alright?" Sturmsi asked then.

"That depends on how you look at it," Pennywise said. "He is quite alive at this moment but only by the mercy of Calypso herself. He would not be otherwise."

Sturmsi scoffed. "Calypso...that bitch," she growled. "I have a strong suspicion that she's the one who dragged them out here in the first place."

Pennywise didn't respond to that. He didn't need to. But then a few moments later he decided to inform Sturmsi of something else. "Hook is losing his power over that ship. It's beginning to fall apart as he is doing the same. They are sinking. It's not very likely that any of them will survive long enough to see the light of day again."

"Hmmm..." Sturmsi grumbled as she considered her options. There weren't many. She could simply leave them to Calypso, who would most likely dispatch them to Davy Jones after she was done toying with them...or she could destroy them herself and put them out of their misery...or she could attempt some kind of rescue - the latter being the most challenging of the three by far. It had been hard enough for her to simply locate the ship and get close enough to make a visual identification of it; actually docking with it in this wild storm without inadvertently destroying it in the process would be an even more difficult and tedious undertaking and she wasn't quite sure that she had the willpower that it would take for that endeavor to be successful. There was nothing that Sturmsi hated more than failing at something that she really tried to do and her aversion to that was almost enough to deter her from even making the attempt at all. But then she realized that Calypso would laugh at her if she turned away now. No, Sturmsi decided, she would NOT let her win. And so, with a new level of confidence and determination that flared within her she began to maneuver the _Bestrafer_ as steadily as possible towards the _Roger_, attempting to maintain the angle that was needed for her starboard side docking clamps to get a good latch on the fragile, wounded ship that now stood completely at her mercy. Once she got close enough she would have to be ready to back off quickly in case one of the waves decided to try and smack the _Roger_ against the _Bestrafer's_ hull before she could get the clamps closed around it tightly enough to steady it and scoop it up safely out of the raging seawater, an action that would have to be executed at just the right moment if she wanted the waterlogged pirate ship to remain intact through the process.

"They are...frightened," Pennywise informed her approvingly with another of his strange smiles.

"Well, they should be," Sturmsi replied flatly.

- - - - - -

Back on the _Roger_, Mullins had regained enough of his sight that he felt capable of making a dash for the hatch to the fo'c'sle without accidentally running off the side of the ship. "AHHH!" he screamed in terror as felt the _Bestrafer_ getting closer and closer to them and, even though he knew that there was no real escape from it, he had an intense urge to bolt into his hammock below deck so that he could curl up under his blanket like a scared little kid trying to hide from the boogeyman. At least then he wouldn't have to look at it. The sound of her engine was getting louder every second as she continued to chug her way towards them and it was pushing is panic button like crazy. He didn't care if Sturmsi intended to try and help them or not. She, along with her devil ship, seethed an oppressive aura of doom that never failed to fill him with dread, especially when her engine was running, and her encroaching vicinity was nearly enough to drive the poor clairvoyant pirate to complete madness. "I can't stand it!" he cried and then he started moving, but he stayed on his hands and knees and crawled towards his destination just to feel a little bit safer.

Just then, Mason and Cookson popped up out of the same hatch that Mullins was crawling towards, having been aroused by all the noise and wanting to see what was going on outside. They'd recognized the sound of the foghorn and knew that it had probably come from the _Bestrafer_ but they wanted to see it for themselves just to make sure. They threw open the hatch to take a look outside but as soon as they were exposed to the light they cringed away from it, uttering expletives as they were stunned in place while Mullins pushed his way in between the two men and dove headfirst into the space below them. He landed right on top of Starkey, who'd been waiting at the foot of the ladder because he was unable to climb it on his own, and then both men lied there on the deck in a crumpled heap together for several moments until Mullins was finally able to disentangle himself from his injured colleague. Instead of proceeding to his hammock as originally planned, though, Mullins scooted himself on his butt until his back rested against the bulkhead near the ladderwell and then he did something that he'd never actually done before in his whole life until then - he prayed, to whatever God might be listening. Starkey looked at him with a worried expression and remained seated on the deck nearby since it would be a difficult task for him to get back to his feet again unless someone decided to help him up and, for the moment, it didn't look like anyone was going to. He saw that there was some kind of strange light shining upon the _Roger_ but he was far enough down into the hatch that he wasn't blinded by its glare like the others had been.

Smee continued to man the helm of the _Roger_ and keep her as steady as he could while Hook stood his ground for several more minutes. But then Hook noticed that the _Bestrafer_ was getting dangerously close to his ship and once he realized what Sturmsi was going to attempt to do he used the rope that he still had a hold of to quickly pull himself back to the capstan and then he made his way back to the helm to stand by it instead. He understood that she was probably going to try and grab a hold of them as she'd done before but he didn't understand how that was going to be possible in this terrible storm without smashing them to bits in the process. He had to wonder, did she actually _want_ to destroy them? He rather doubted that. He recalled the fact that she had an extremely powerful cannon that could be used to promptly obliterate them with one shot from a great distance away if she chose to utilize it for that purpose and she appeared to be maneuvering towards their location with great care as she maintained a broadside angle rather than rushing straight at them for a head-on collision. Hook also noted, with much relief, that her "maw" was closed.

- - - - - -

When the _Bestrafer_ was just a few dozen yards away from the _Roger_, Sturmsi blared her foghorn again to warn the pirates of her impending contact with their ship and to hopefully scare them into vacating the maindeck if any of them happened to be upon it as she prepared the upper set of her starboard clamps to be properly descended by partially lowering them down to a point that was, hopefully, still high enough to clear the _Roger's_ hull while reducing the amount of space, and therefore the amount of time, that the clamps would need to be lowered further before they made contact with their target once they were correctly positioned over it and she continued to keep her ship steady on its course. It was a painstaking effort that was going to take every bit of Sturmsi's concentration and she still wasn't quite sure that she was going to be able to pull it off, especially since it seemed as though Calypso herself was fighting against her tooth and nail the whole time. The _Bestrafer_ got close enough for a moment that the clamps passed right over the _Roger's_ maindeck but just before Sturmsi could even begin to lower them down upon it and secure the much smaller ship to her side she noticed an especially large wave coming up just beyond its starboard side and she realized ahead of time that in just a few seconds it was going to cause the _Roger_ to be raised up and canted in a way that she would be impaled and subsequently shredded by the _Bestrafer's_ recently lowered set of clamps that were extended towards her. Sturmsi simultaneously raised the clamps back up to their full height and throttled her engine to make the starboard side propellers reverse the _Bestrafer_ sideways at full speed to port in order to prevent that from happening. Her engine growled angrily with the extreme change in both speed and direction as though it was about to bust its nuts, and the brackets in her hull shrieked with the stress of the many tons of shifting weight that they supported. Sturmsi called her ship an old mare and told her to quit her bellyaching. The merciful effort was narrowly successful and the _Roger_ remained unscathed when the giant wave passed smoothly under her keel to go on and crash violently into the _Bestrafer's_ retreating starboard hull; the bases of the clamps that protruded from it acted like the artificial wave breakers of a seawall and thoroughly decimated it but the force of the big wave still canted the larger ship even further to port, enough that the trio of square-shaped compartments that were integrated in the lower section of her hull, which contained massive propellers that were each covered by a circular patch of thick metal grating to prevent unwanted objects from getting into them, were briefly exposed to the air before she was righted again a moment later. But now Sturmsi realized that she would have to go through the trouble of reattaining her position beside the _Roger_ again if she was going to continue with her endeavor to save her. It annoyed her and she got so mad that she slammed the _Bestrafer_ into gear and rushed towards the _Roger_ again, very quickly this time before another wave could foil her plan. As soon as she felt that it was time to do so Sturmsi halted her ship abruptly, deliberately canting her sharply to starboard so that her railing hung directly over the _Roger_, and deftly dropped the upper clamps down from their full height and raised the lower set of them up under the _Roger's_ keel at the same time and clenched her solidly in between them like a giant, oddly skeletal Venus fly trap just a second after the _Bestrafer's_ starboard hull had butted quite rudely against her port side and just a second before the _Roger_ was finally secured in the _Bestrafer's_ iron grasp and then lifted up to a safer height above the raging waters. The jolt of the impact was not quite hard enough to damage the pirate ship, at least not severely, but it was plenty hard enough to topple any pirate who was still standing at that moment and send him falling on his ass, if he was lucky, and where he would stay, if he was smart, until the dangerous maneuver was completed, which it was after the boarding ladders were extended and dropped down to the _Roger's_ maindeck in between the clamping arms that held her fast.

- - - - - -

When it was finally over Hook could hardly believe that he was still alive. He'd been quite relieved when Sturmsi had deliberately backed away from the _Roger_ just in time to keep her vicious-looking clamps from scuppering them. Then he'd seen the terrible visage of the _Bestrafer's_ broadside rushing towards them again at a murderous pace, crashing through the mountainous waves in between them. He'd continued to watch her newly fervent advance upon them, spellbound, but when she'd finally put on her breaks and had canted over them he could stand it no longer and had to close his eyes and turn his head away before the unnerving sight made him pass out. When he'd felt the impact, heard the screeching of the clamps, and the terrible vibrations they made when they bit down on the _Roger_ he'd truly thought that they'd been scuppered for sure and he'd braced himself for the cold embrace of death that he'd expected to feel at any moment while he lied sprawling on the deck with his claw hooked around the wheel of the helm that Smee was still clinging to as well to keep from sliding or being thrown clean off the ship. He was more than a little surprised when, after the _Roger_ had stopped being moved, he opened his eyes and saw that his ship, as well as his own body, were still intact and they were now elevated to a point where the waves could no longer splash over the railing, or at least not nearly as often; the _Bestrafer_ had hoisted them up out of the water so that most of the waves that came at them crested well below the empty gun ports in the _Roger's_ starboard side hull. He did not understand how it was even remotely possible that Sturmsi had managed to maneuver her hulking ship like that in this kind of weather without completely smashing them to bits. He was, however, quite grateful for it and he sighed heavily with relief as he sat upon the deck next to Smee, who was the only man on board who had not fallen to the deck when the _Bestrafer_ had made her first violent contact with them, and he rested his tired head in the palm of his only hand.

Hook stayed that way for quite some time, dozing for maybe an hour. When he lifted his head again he noticed that there was a strange quietness around the ship. He looked over at Smee, who was still at the helm but had fallen asleep on it, and he decided to leave him be for the moment. It was still dark but it had quit raining and the wind had abated to a stiff breeze. The thunder and lighting had also ceased. Apparently, the terrible storm was finally over. Oddly enough, it almost seemed as though the _Bestrafer_ had chased it away, and Sturmsi had decided to shut down the engine of her ship to let it rest for a while. Hook didn't understand it, but Calypso had retreated after having been defeated in battle by Sturmsi and she had left the victor to keep the "prize" that the demonic captain had snatched away from the sea goddess.

- - - - - -

Several minutes later, Sturmsi boarded the _Roger_. Hook forced himself to his feet when he saw her coming even though he really did not want to get up. He was so tired. He was thankful, though, that she was in her humanish form at the moment instead of her much less pleasant one. His movement had awakened Smee but the bosun remained attached to the helm - he was draped over it like a wet, worn out rag, unlikely able to remain upright without its support; the spurt of energy that he'd managed to sustain for the past week seemed to have gone with the wind, literally, and now he looked even worse for the wear. Hook regarded Sturmsi with a stony expression as she approached the place where the two men stood and her stern gaze softened to an expression of dire concern when she got close enough to take a good look at Smee and saw how terrible he really looked. To her, he looked even worse than a typical Holocaust survivor who'd just been liberated from a Nazi deathcamp and she couldn't help but feel sorry for him, even more so than she'd ever had before. She ascended to the helm and went to Smee, taking him gently by the shoulders as she disentangled him from the ship's wheel, and then led his drooping form down from the platform onto the maindeck, keeping a firm grip on him so that he wouldn't fall down. Then she turned and looked back at Hook, who hadn't yet moved from the position where he'd stood up nor had made any attempt to stop her from collecting his ragged bosun.

"I'll be back," she told him curtly and then she turned away from him took Smee with her to the _Bestrafer_.

Hook knew that he had no reason to worry about anything at this point because even though there were lots of things he should be worried about he knew that there was nothing he could do about them at the moment. So without another thought he went straight into his cabin, staggered to his bed and collapsed upon it, and then he promptly fell into a sound, dreamless sleep. He hadn't even bothered to lock his door either, something that he'd never failed to do before going to sleep in the past. But it's not that he'd forgotten to do it, he just hadn't cared to.

At some point while Hook still slept, Sturmsi had come back to the _Roger_ with a few of her minions who carried several thick plastic crates of various supplies with them, consisting mainly of canned food, blankets, and first-aid kits. She had them stack the boxes neatly in the center of the maindeck near the fallen mast and secure them together with bungee cords. Then she went to the hatch that lead into the fo'c'sle, which was now closed, and pounded on it with the hard heel of one of the heavy boots that she wore on her feet. Then she waited to see if anyone would come out. Eventually, Mason cracked it open and cautiously peered up at her with a much-fearful expression.

"Come out," she commanded him sternly.

Mason did as he was told hastily, albeit reluctantly.

Sturmsi pointed at the boxes that her minions had just finished delivering. "I brought you some things that you need," she said flatly. "Empty the boxes and do what you will with their contents. When the boxes are empty leave them where you found them here on the maindeck. Leave the excess packaging such as empty cans and wrappers in them as well. I will have my crewmen return in a few days or so to retrieve them." Then she reached into her coat pocket and pulled something out which she then handed to Mason. "Here," she said, motioning for him to take it, which he did with a confused expression as he looked at it. It was a can opener, a rotary type one that had a hand crank and two rubberized handles. "You may use that to open the cans," she told him. And then she turned to leave.

Mullins had been waiting at the bottom of the ladderwell, listening while Sturmsi spoke to Mason. When he sensed her leaving he summoned all of the courage that he had in his being and ascended to the maindeck and called after her. "Captain Sturmsi," he said with a pleading expression, his fear having been overpowered by his desperation, "uh...would you please...it's Billy...could you please see if there's anything you can do for him? He's in real bad shape. Aside from the starvation he's been sick with a fever for the past couple weeks and, well, I don't think he's gonna hold out much longer. He won't even wake up no more," he finished with a graven look.

Sturmsi stopped and turned around to face him, cocking her head to the right and narrowing her eyes a bit in a quizzical manner as she regarded him silently for a few moments. Mullins had never approached her before, let alone addressed her; he'd always been too fearful and he'd always avoided her like the plague every time she'd boarded the _Roger_ in the past, not wanting so much as to even catch sight of her. She didn't care much for him either, or the Jukes boy for that matter, but she saw the dire concern that Mullins had for his young friend now just by looking at his eyes and she actually felt sorry for him just then. "Alright," she said in a conceding tone as she straitened her head. "Bring him up here and I'll take him with me to der _Bestrafer_ and see what can be done for him over there," she told him in her gruff and rather unfeminine voice, as she cocked her head in the other direction to indicate her ship.

Mullins didn't like the idea of Billy being taken into the devil ship but he also knew that it was the boy's only chance. He was going to die pretty soon anyway and if there was anything that Sturmsi could do to stop that, even if it was by witchery, Mullins would be happy for it. "Ok," he said and he went back down into the fo'c'sle to retrieve Billy. A few minutes later, Mullins handed him up to Mason who was waiting for him at the hatch. Billy was unconscious and his abnormally thin form was wrapped up in a dirty blanket. Mason carried him over to Sturmsi who held out her arms to receive him. Mason carefully placed Billy into them and after seeing that Sturmsi could easily support him he carefully backed away from her and then Mullins came up to stand beside him.

"You may come along with him if you like," Sturmsi offered as she looked at Mullins.

Mullins thought about it for a few seconds but found that he did not have enough courage for that. "Um, no thank you, Ma'am" he said as politely as he could and he looked at the deck sullenly as he silently cursed himself for being such a coward. But he just couldn't help it. The negative energy that came off of the _Bestrafer_ was hard enough for him to stand from the outside of the nasty thing and he couldn't imagine how bad it would be on the inside nor did he want to even try. He could only hope that Billy would be all right.

"Very well. I will see to it that everything possible is done to cure him and I will bring him back if and when he recovers. If he does not then I will return his body to you," Sturmsi said stoically and then she turned and carried the dying boy with her as she returned to her ship.

Mason and Mullins started working on the boxes of supplies. It took them several minutes to figure out how to open them but once they did they started getting right down to business and they moved their contents into the storage hold below deck for safe keeping, making sure to leave the empty boxes above deck as Sturmsi had instructed them. Cookson eventually joined them after Mason had figured out how to operate the can opener. After consuming several cans worth of the food himself along with the other two men, Mason finally brought some of it down to Starkey who had fallen asleep on the deck in the fo'c'sle while Mullins went to rouse the captain. By then, daylight had just begun to illuminate the overcast sky above the two ships. It was still very cloudy but the clouds looked relatively normal at that point; they were gray instead of black, they were no longer swirling, and best of all, the weird vortex was gone.

Mullins knocked on the door of Hook's cabin several times and called for him but there was no answer. After several minutes he decided to try the door. Finding that it was unlocked he went inside and saw the captain lying on his bed as still as a stone. Mullins went over to him and called his name again but still there was no answer. The captain looked very pale and Mullins couldn't tell if he was breathing or not. So he moved closer to stand right over him and then he shouted his name as loud as he could but still there was no response of any kind. Finally, Mullins got frustrated and, thinking that Hook might even be dead at that point, he bent down and placed his hands upon the lying figure's chest in order to shake him. All of a sudden, Mullins found Hook's hand around his throat and it was squeezed so tight that the Brooklyn brigand could not breath at all. When Mullins started to turn blue Hook finally let go of him and he crumpled to the deck and lied there on his side wheezing and rubbing his sore throat as Hook rose up from his bed and looked down at him balefully.

"Gall and brimstone, Mullins," Hook growled. "What in the name of Darby McGraw do you think you are doing in here?"

Mullins tried to explain it in between coughs and gasps for air. "Capt'n...Sturmsi...she came over...brought some food and stuff...thought ya might wanna know...ya didn't answer when I called...thought maybe ya'd..."

Hook stood up and stepped over Mullins to get to the door.

"It's in the hold, Capt'n," Mullins called after him. "We stowed it there. She said take it outa the boxes so she can get the empty ones later."

Hook left his cabin and went below deck to investigate the new items in the storage hold. When he saw the supplies that Sturmsi had given them, he really wasn't quite sure what to think of it and he was slightly suspicious about it. Why had she done this? Furthermore, how had she...? Never mind. He felt his stomach rumble when he picked up one of the cylindrical food cans and read its description - roast beef hash - and gazed at the colorful picture of said dish that was printed boldly on its label. He inspected the can for a lid or a tab of some sort and found none; it appeared to be made of a strange type of dark gray metal that had no seams whatsoever. He punched the tip of his claw into one end of the can and used it to cut the thing open. Then he took a whiff of the pinkish contents - it smelled very good. He grabbed several more of the cans, which he stuffed into his coat pockets, and then carried the opened one with him back to his quarters so that, despite the fact that he was nearly starved to death, he could sit at his dinner table and use a fork to consume his meal like a civilized person, unlike the other men who, he would not have been at all surprised to learn, had used their own unwashed fingers to stuff the food they'd taken down their ravening gullets.

After he'd finished eating, Hook stepped outside of his cabin with a freshly lit cigar clamped in his split claw and he puffed at it gingerly. He felt much better now that he had a full stomach. He spied Mullins sitting upon a crate on the maindeck. He absently noted that it was the very same crate that Smee had been sitting upon right before the storm had hit them. Mullins appeared to be brooding as he regarded the _Bestrafer_ that was affixed to their port side. Hook walked over to him and noticed that he also seemed to be very depressed about something. "What say you, Mullins?" he asked with mild curiosity.

"Billy's over there," he replied dolefully. "I asked Capt'n Sturmsi if she might could do anythin' for him. She said she'd try to but she had to take him over there first. So I let her." Then he sighed heavily. "I...I just hope he'll be alright."

"Aye. Smee's over there, too," Hook said, unperturbed. "Fear not, Mullins, she will not harm them. I think it's safe to say that, despite her unwelcoming appearance, der _Bestrafer_ possesses many fine amenities that are far more advanced than what we simple pirates are accustomed to. In other words, our enfeebled comrades stand a much better chance of survival over there than they do on this moldering wreck."

"I hope you're right, Sir," Mullins said. "I just can't help it, though, that devil ship gives me the creeps. But Billy was in real bad shape, barely even breathin' at all. I don't know what kind of witchery it might take to cure him...but if that's what it takes then so be it."

"Indeed," Hook replied. "How fortunate we are to have crossed paths with a demon who has proven willing to utilize her exceptionally formidable brand of craft, in both the physical and metaphysical sense, so it seems, to provide aid to pirates such as ourselves. Wouldn't you agree, Mullins?"

"Aye, Sir, I won't argue with that. But that doesn't mean we should get complacent with it. You can _never_ trust a demon," Mullins told him.

"Touché, Mullins, touché," Hook replied. "I shall concede to the fact that your argument is cogent. However, at the moment we are, unfortunately, in a predicament that requires us to accept her generous hospitality with an unprecedented level gratitude. And we're not out of the woods yet. We are still trapped in this accursed "dead ocean", as she has so aptly referred to it, and we know not yet what she has in store for us in the end. If she were to abandon us here then we would be right back where we started again. I will have to speak with her and find out if she can, and will, put us back to the place whence we belong."

Later on that day, around noon, after the wind had died down to a more pleasant breeze, the sun came out. The pirates who remained on the _Roger_ had regained much of their strength by then. Mullins, Mason, Starkey, and Cookson busied themselves by toiling around their ship. Being aloft of the sea for so many hours had allowed most of the water that had been taken into her during the storm to be drained back into the sea below them and they took advantage of the unusual position to make the much needed repairs to the leaks in her bulkheads. That job took the rest of the day and then some of the next, but by midday of the following they had begun to look for other things to do to keep them occupied. They needed to repair the mainmast somehow but they kind of needed Billy Jukes for that; they knew that he would be able to construct some kind of device that would make the job a lot easier than if they tried to do it manually. Sturmsi had not yet returned from the _Bestrafer_ since she'd taken him over there so they had no idea how he, or Smee for that matter, was doing. Mullins was getting more worried about Billy with each passing hour but he tried not to think about it too much.

Hook was even beginning to wonder about Smee as well; he wondered if the old codger would be able to survive now that the storm had passed. He remembered that Smee had been nearly ready to pass away right before it had struck but he'd sort of come back to life as it was born and then he'd seemed to become sustained by it as it raged on through the passing week. But what would become of him now that the tempest was no more? Hook eagerly awaited Sturmsi's return to the _Roger_ so that he could be updated on the conditions of his absent crewmen as well as to talk to her about the bizarre imbroglio that he and all of his pirates had unwittingly found themselves woven into.

* * * * * *


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

It wasn't until the late afternoon of the next day that Sturmsi returned to the _Roger_ as promised with Smee and Billy Jukes in tow.

Having been alerted once again by that infernal sounding horn, which was ever more infernal sounding when the thing that made it was verily right next to your bunk, all of the pirates of the _Roger_ appeared on deck with an even mixture of agitation, trepidation, and curiosity to watch Sturmsi descend one of the rusty bridge-like apparatuses that were suspended between the two ships from the one that she hailed from. And behind her followed their two missing shipmates, both of whom appeared to have been restored to a better condition of physical health than what they had been in previously. However, their mental state was another issue, or at least it was for the younger and less experienced of the returning party.

While the rest of the pirates stood back calmly, the calmest of them being Hook, who stood at the forefront of the others, Mullins could barely hold back the urge to run right up to Billy, just as soon as he had stepped foot on the _Roger's_ maindeck, and snatch him away from the demonic wench that currently stood between them, no matter what she'd done to help the poor lad. And, in fact, Sturmsi's immediate presence was the only thing at the moment that was keeping him from doing just that. _Never trust a demon_, his own words echoed in his mind. It was not as though the fact that he cared for Billy was a big secret amongst the rest of the crew. Hook himself had been the one to entrust Mullins with Billy's piratical training shortly after they'd picked him up from that desert isle the boy had been marooned on several years prior to their arrival in Neverland. And Mullins had taken the job to heart, taking the lad under his wing and showing him the ropes, going far beyond what Hook had ever expected of him on this particular matter. And, as far as Mullins was concerned, he had done an excellent job of it too, if he did say so himself. The Brooklyn Brigand had never been too partial to children, and it had been quite a task indeed for the older, grizzled buccaneer to overcome his lack of patience with the youngster enough to raise him up to the fine young pirate that he was now. Or, at least, had been, before they were beset with this fiasco. The very last thing that Mullins wanted now was for Billy to be corrupted by some evil spirit on the _Bestrafer_ after all his hard work with him over the years, and thus ruin the friendship they had developed. That was indeed a fear that weighed heavily on his mind right now.

After Sturmsi had stepped off the metal grating to stand on the wooden maindeck where the pirates were waiting for her and her charges, she stood aside to allow Smee and Billy to pass her and return to their stations.

That's when Mullins did run up to Billy and took him roughly by the shoulders. "Billy, are you alright, matey?" he asked the boy quietly, but with the edge of concern in his already gruff voice.

Billy just looked at him blankly for a moment, not seeming to recognize the man in front of him.

"Billy??" Mullins questioned with urgency as he shook the boy to snap him out of his daze. "Speak to me, boy!" he demanded fiercely.

Billy's eyes lit up then as he came to, though there was still a bit of listlessness in them. "Mullins?" he croaked weakly. "W-where am I?"

"You're back on the _Roger_, mate, where ya belong!" Mullins told him sternly. "Can't you see that?"

Billy looked around and blinked his eyes, as if he had just now waken up from a deep sleep. "Oh, right. Good," he responded, seeing that this was true.

"Are you all right?" Mullins asked, believing that the answer was no.

"Yeah," Billy replied. "I'm fine, cully. Just a bit...woozy, I guess."

Mullins released him then and stood back to appraise him. "You don't look so well to me, Billy," he said, then he leaned in closer to whisper something to the boy. "What's that witch done to you?" he asked as quietly as he could, though he suspected that Sturmsi might hear him anyway. And he really didn't care at that point, though he kept his voice down anyway.

And he was correct. Sturmsi had indeed heard what Mullins had just said perfectly well and she quickly approached the duo to stand just a few feet to the side of them, before Billy could offer an answer to his question. "I did what I said I would do," she told Mullins stolidly. "Mr. Jukes was extremely ill, and I cured him of the disease he'd contracted. Though he is not completely well yet, as it will take some time for him to fully recover. You understand?"

Mullins resisted the urge to step away from her, not wanting to show his cowardice by leaving Billy's side just because she had stepped a bit closer to him. Though it was hard for him to do, he stood his ground silently as he eyed Sturmsi with an accusing glare.

"It's true, Mullins," Billy told him with an honest expression. "I woulda died if it wasn't for her. She saved my life."

Sturmsi raised her chin slightly at this proclamation along with an eyebrow as she returned Mullins' gaze with a smug look that said "told you so".

Meanwhile, Captain Hook had watched curiously as Mullins had performed his inspection of Billy, and this had, oddly enough, prompted him to do the same for Smee, who'd come to stand before his captain without a word as he wearily waited to be given an order. Also remaining silent, Hook wrapped his had around one of the bosun's paltry biceps and pulled him closer to larboard railing of the ship. Then he released his arm and used his gloved fingers to draw the skin away from Smee's eyes in the same manner as a doctor would when giving someone a medical examination, and also to open his mouth to look inside of it before closing it and then taking him by the chin to turn his head around in different directions. Smee stood quietly and didn't provide any resistance while this took place. Hook noticed that much of Smee's color had returned, though he'd never had much of it to begin with. And although Smee still looked very tired, Hook doubted it that was any worse than what he himself looked at the moment, and the bosun didn't have the same listless look in his eyes as the gunner did. Hook thought about this and suspected that it probably had something to do with Smee's prior service on der _Bestrafer_, along with his uncanny ability to shrug things off, in the event that they even registered on him in the first place. Hook also wondered then if Jukes had seen something, perhaps something in one of compartments that Sturmsi liked to call "bad rooms". Like the one he had opened. And he shuddered at the thought has he turned his head around to look at Jukes again just in time to catch Mullins showing some discourtesy to Sturmsi in his overprotective zeal for the younger pirate.

"Well, if that's true, then I do thank you for that, Ma'am," Mullins said to her. "But mark my words...if I find out that Billy's been corrupted by any your witchery, or otherwise messed with by any the resta your crew, I'll..."

"You'll what?" Sturmsi prodded, crossing her arms and giving Mullins one of her half-smiles as her eyes glinted at him.

"Why, I'll not rest until I-" Mullins was continuing before he was cut off by an reprimanding growl that came from Hook as the captain stomped towards him angrily, making the Brooklyn Brigand shut his mouth as he realized that perhaps he was just a bit out of line, and out of luck.

"Stow it, Mullins, you chicken-hearted son of a Brooklyn broom-bandit!" Hook yelled as he stomped over to Mullins who, failing to retreat, was shoved by the captain so that he went sprawling on the deck a few feet from where he'd been standing. Then Hook pushed Billy in the same direction, just hard enough that he was put near Mullins without being made to fall right on top of him. Billy kept his balance and steadied himself before reaching down to give Mullins a hand. Mullins took it and got back to his feet, but stayed where he was to give the captain a dirty look as soon as the larger man had turned his head to look at Sturmsi.

"Please, Captain Sturmsi, allow me to apologize for Mr. Mullin's rude behavior, and I do hope that you'll be kind enough to forgive me of his extreme uncouthness," Hook said as his voice changed immediately, along with his expression, to one that was so saccharine in nature that no one, not even someone who'd never met Hook before, would have been able to take it seriously.

Sturmsi, however, went along with it and chose to pretend that it wasn't fake for the time being. "Apology accepted, Captain Hook. Now, I suspect that you have some matters to discuss with me. Is that correct?"

"Oh, yes indeed," Hook replied as he placed his hook in the palm of his hand and curled his fingers around it. "How very perspicacious of you, Madam." Then Hook let go of his claw and held out his hand to politely usher Sturmsi into his cabin. "I invite you to accompany me in the privacy of my quarters so that we may talk business, captain to captain, n'est-ce pas?

"Mit Vergnügen," Sturmsi replied sweetly as her eyes went matte with a look of feigned innocence that was almost enough to completely disguise her typical animus and make her appear fragile, though she knew that no one was actually fooled by it, and she allowed Hook to lightly touch her shoulder and lead her chivalrously into his quarters, opening the door for her and closing it behind them as he followed her inside.

As soon as they were gone, Mullins turned his attention back to Billy. Seeing that the boy appeared to need more rest, a lot more, he placed a friendly hand on his shoulder in a comforting gesture. "Come on, Billy boy, let's get you down to the fo'c'sle so's you can get some proper rest, aye?" he said as he motioned for Billy to come with him as he made to leave in that direction, pulling the boy with him.

"Thanks, Mullins, but to be honest, I don't really feel like sleeping right now," Billy replied, rubbing his face to try and remove the drowsy look that he felt clinging to it. "I'd rather go down to my workshop."

"Alright, then," Mullins conceded. "Let's go." And with that, Mullins began to lead Billy down to the area the boy had expressed his desire be in. "I hope ya don't mind, but I'd also like to talk with you some," he added, hinting that it the conversation would be better had in private.

"I wouldn't mind," Billy responded with an expression that conveyed his appreciation for Mullin's company as the friends, likely the only two people who were truly friends with each other on the whole ship, disappeared together below deck.

- - - - - -

Meanwhile, Hook had pulled up a padded chair so that it was just a few feet away from the one that he usually sat in before motioned for Sturmsi to sit down in it. She did, and after she had appeared to make herself comfortable he went to his ornately hand-carved, wooden liquor cabinet that was affixed to the bulkhead next to his harpsichord. "Would you care for a drink?" he asked as he surveyed the various bottles that were arranged neatly inside.

"No thanks, I'm good," Sturmsi replied crisply as settled herself into the chair, crossing her legs and folding her hands in her lap.

Hook selected a bottle of his finest port for himself and then also took a glass by the stem from the lowest shelf in the cabinet in his hand, which was simultaneously big dexterous enough to easily carry both items at the same time. Then used his hook to scoot an endtable that was under the cabinet so that it stood next to his chair instead, before plopping himself down and setting the glass aside.

Sturmsi watched Hook quietly in the dim white light of the overcast day that came in from the windows of the cabin while he situated himself in his chair before removing the cork from the bottle to set it on the table next to the glass, and as he poured himself a drink before setting the bottle down to pick the glass up and take a swig from it.

Hook winced a little as he swallowed the port and lowered the glass so it's bottom rested on his leg, and he looked at Sturmsi with a haggard but determined expression as he tried to think of the best way to proceed with the discussion that he needed to have with her.

She only returned his gaze with a stoic expression, though she was curious to find out what he was doing out here in the Dead Expanse, besides getting himself, and more importantly Smee, into trouble, and she waited patiently for him to begin the conversation. When he didn't, she glanced around the room to spy one of the boxes of food she'd had delivered earlier, which looked to be just about empty, as well as Hook's dining table, which was pushed into the corner of the room with several empty cans sitting on it. Then she turned her gaze back to Hook, who was just finishing his glass of port. "I trust the food I provided you was sufficient to ease your hunger?" she asked.

"Yes," Hook replied, after he'd swallowed his drink and then he set the empty glass on the table next to him by the bottle. "And very much appreciated," he added with a rare sense of sincere gratitude.

"Good," Sturmsi replied. And then silence fell between them again. Finally, Sturmsi realized that it was up to her to get down to business. "So..." she began as she reached into her coat to pull out a pack of cigarettes. "Do you mind if I smoke?"

"No, go right ahead," Hook told her as he poured himself one more small drink.

Then Sturmsi removed a cigarette from the pack and put it in her mouth before replacing the pack in her pocket and pulling a lighter from it.

Hook watched as she lit up and he noted curiously that her cigarette was completely white, save for a few tiny green lines that encircled its filter. "What brand is that?" he asked.

"Marlboro," Sturmsi replied as she gripped her cigarette between her fingers and took a drag, then she exhaled the bluish smoke from her lips so that it roiled off to her side.

"Never heard of it," Hook said before downing the rest of his port.

"Anyway," Sturmsi said as she uncrossed her legs and leaned forward to scoot her butt all the way back into the chair so that she could sit up more straightly before recrossing her legs and placing her free hand on her shin. "What the hell are you doing out here?"

Hook sighed as he put his glass down and straightened himself in his chair. Then he rested his elbows on the armrests and took a hold of his hook in his hand again, to twist it in his palm as he began a response that he somewhat dreaded to give. "I don't rightly know," he admitted. "I was hoping that you might be able to provide me with an explanation as to how I got here. I don't even know where the hell I am," he added with a soft growl.

"Welcome to the Dead Expanse," Sturmsi said before puffing on her cigarette again.

"Okay," Hook replied flatly. "But what exactly is this damned place, and how does one go about getting _the hell_ out of it?"

"Well..." Sturmsi began as she tried to think of the best way to explain it to him, "it's like an intermediate area, what you might refer to as a no-man's land, between the various alternate dimensions that exist in our universe."

"Alternate dimensions?" Hook questioned with an appalled expression. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"No, of course you don't," Sturmsi replied as she moved her eyes to look at Hook's harpsichord. "So it's hard for me to even begin explaining it to you. You really have no idea what's going on."

"Well, I must admit that you have me at a disadvantage here, Sturmsi," Hook conceded. "But I would appreciate it if you would be so kind as to fill me in on the things that I am obviously so ignorant about."

"I'm afraid there's not much I can tell you that you would be able to understand, or even want to understand," Sturmsi replied as she looked at Hook again. "No offense, but it would be like trying to explain quantum mechanics to a two-year old."

Hook let out another soft growl that would have been a much louder one if he had not forced himself to subdue it before prodding Sturmsi for more information. "You are correct to say that I know nothing of what you call 'quantum mechanics', and I'm sure that I would be better off not even asking about it. And I don't intend to, I assure you. But can you at least tell me what it is that I need to know to get myself, my ship, and my crew back to safety?"

"Oh, that's easy," Sturmsi replied as she let some of the smoke of her most recent drag from her cigarette seep out of her nostrils, which caused Hook to think of a dragon, and to be reminded that was practically what she was. "I'll take you back to where you belong."

"Back where?" Hook asked suspiciously.

"Back to where you came from," Sturmsi said as she pinched the cherry of her cigarette between her fingers to put it out. "Back to Neverland."

Hook just blinked at her for a few moments before attempting a response to that. "Oh, but my dear Sturmsi, that is not the place where I, nor any of my crew, actually hail from. No, we wish to return to waters of the Spanish Main. That is precisly why we disembarked from the cursed isle of Neverland, and somehow, inexplicably, found ourselves trapped in this strange place, this Dead Expanse, as you so aptly call it."

"Spanish Main?" Sturmsi questioned as she stuck the dead butt of her cigarette into one of her pockets and then clasped her hands together in her lap. "I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about."

"You've never heard of the Spanish Main??" Hook asked incredulously. "Come now, I find that hard to believe. You seem far too worldly for that to be true."

"It does sound familiar, like I've heard of it before, but I really don't know offhand where it is," Sturmsi replied sincerely. "I don't think I've ever had any business there, to be quite honest."

"Hold on a moment," Hook said as he got up from his chair and went to an armoire from which he pulled out one of his charts. He unfolded it and smoothed it out on the top of the armoire before bringing it over to Sturmsi and handing it to her. "Look at this," he told her. After she'd taken it, he moved to rest left his arm on the back of her chair as he continued to stand by it, and he pointed with his claw to a particular section of the Atlantic ocean that was shown on the map. "This is where we want to go."

"Oh, I see," Sturmsi said as she recognized the eastern coastlines of the North and South American continents that surrounded the sea that Hook was pointing to, and she realized that it was an area near what she knew as the Gulf of Mexico, between Florida and Cuba. "I do know exactly where this is, but there is still a problem."

"What?" Hook asked as he retraced his claw and placed it at his side as he otherwise maintained his position.

Sturmsi turned her head and looked up at Hook while she continued to hold the map to see him looming over her very closely and looking down at her intently.

Hook noticed that her eyes were shiny again, but he didn't budge.

"I don't know how to get to the exact version of this place that you know of," Sturmsi told him. "And this isn't going to help," she added as she held the map up for him to take it back.

Hook split his claw open and clipped the edge of the map in it as he clamped it back together and Sturmsi let go of it. Hook stood there and stared at the map for a moment, trying to figure out what the problem was, before realizing that the problem that Sturmsi had was not with the map, so he lowered it down to his side as she continued to look up at him, fully anticipating that he would question her further.

"What do you mean by that?" Hook asked. "What do you mean by 'version'?"

"I told you, there are alternate dimensions," Sturmsi replied.

"I don't even know what _that_ means," Hook spat as he moved around her chair to stand in front of her so that she wouldn't have to keep her neck twisted to look at him.

Sturmsi sighed as she moved her head to follow him. "I don't know what else to tell you," she said as she continued to look up at Hook with an earnest expression. "All I can say is if I knew the way to get to the place you that want to be, I would take you there. But, the fact is, I don't. All of the versions of the place that you showed me on your map that I know about are versions that I know you didn't come from, and there are likely many others that I've never been to, including the one that you say you came from. But there's no way for me to locate that specific place without the precise set of interdimensional coordinates that I know you don't have, at least not without embarking on a massive investigation of the innumerable portals that lead to similar places that would probably take eons for me to complete. Which is a task that I don't have the patience for, and you don't have the time."

"Well, just take me to one of the other 'versions' that you do know of then," Hook said. "I don't really care at this point, Sturmsi. But the very last place that I want to go back to is Neverland."

"You don't understand," Sturmsi replied. "All the other versions that I know of are so different from what you know that you wouldn't be any better off in them than you would be if I just left you sitting here in the Dead Expanse to rot. You wouldn't like it there, trust me. And neither would Smee. You wouldn't be able to survive there, none of you would, at least not for very long I'd wager. And then you'd beg me to take you back to Neverland, if you were lucky enough that I bothered to retrieve you."

"Balderdash!" Hook shouted as he threw his hand and his hook into the air in front of him to convey his frustration and his refusal to believe what Sturmsi was telling him. "I'd rather have you just kill me right now instead of dumping me back in the rotten bay of that god-damned island to suffer the rest of my life as Peter Pan's plaything!"

Sturmsi smiled at this proclamation. "Oh, I am quite tempted to do that. To kill you, I mean. I would enjoy that. The only reason I don't, in fact, is because I know that it would upset Smee."

Hook went rigid and he grimaced at Sturmsi for daring to say that as he balled his fist at his side and his hook twitched at the other. But he saw by the look in her eyes that she was being entirely truthful with him. Then he slumped his shoulders and flopped back down in his chair with a deep sigh, and then he placed his hand on his forehead and closed his eyes, wishing for a moment that he was already dead.

Sturmsi saw his pain as he didn't bother to hide it from her then, and she actually felt a bit sorry for him, though not nearly as much as she did for Smee, for having to put up with the likes of Hook on a daily basis. "Oh, you know what? I just remembered something," she said in a way that was meant to cheer up the sad old man who sat before her.

"What," Hook replied flatly without bothering to remove his hand from his face, as he did not expect Sturmsi to have anything else to say that he would find even remotely pleasing.

"While I was in Neverland, I heard a rumor about a special compass that could possibly help you navigate your way through the Dead Expanse, to get to the place that you desire most to be," Sturmsi told him. "And I heard that some witch who lives there on the island is supposed to have it in her possession."

Hook's hand dropped from his face then as his depressed expression was replaced with one of tentative hope. "Oh? Is that right?" he questioned with mounting interest that almost belied his skepticism.

At that time, Mullins perked up his ears as well, as he was sitting silently, crouched as he hid slyly just outside the open window in the side of Hook's cabin, listening to the conversation that was taking place within it. After having briefly spoken with Billy in his workshop below deck, Mullins had left him alone to have some privacy, and then he'd come topside again and decided to creep over to Hook's window find out more about what was going on, and what would be going on, unbeknownst to Hook. Sturmsi, however, was perfectly aware of him doing this, as she could easily sense his presence right through the bulkhead, although she remained unconcerned about it and had decided, for whatever arbitrary reason on her part, not to rat the guy out.

"What sort of compass, and why should I believe in it?" Hook asked her.

"I don't know exactly because I didn't bother to investigate the matter myself before I took my leave of the place," Sturmsi replied. "And what I just told you is the full extent of my knowledge about it, assuming the rumor has any truth to it, which I can't guarantee. But I thought to mention it anyway, out of whatever kindness is left in my old heart, because it's the only way I know of that might enable you to get what you want."

Hook narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Sturmsi but remained interested nonetheless in what she had to say. "Tell me," he questioned her further, "why don't you already have such a compass and, if you do, then why don't you just give me one so as to save yourself a trip back to Neverland?"

"I don't have one, not like that, because I have no need for it," Sturmsi replied. "All of the working compasses on my ship are digital, and are built into the computer system of my ship, and thus can't be removed lest they wouldn't work anymore, for they require the electrical power that's generated by the engines of der _Bestrafer_. This other one I'm referring to is supposed to be magical, and portable, as in hand-held, so it should work just fine on your ship, or wherever else that you might wish to take it, should you managed to get a hold of it."

"Alright, I'll keep that in mind," Hook said with another sigh to indicate his reluctant concession to Sturmsi's attempt at helpfulness. "Thank you for the information, and for the rest of the assistance that you've seen fit to give me," he also forced himself to add.

"You're welcome," Sturmsi replied as she stood up from her chair so that her eyes were nearly even with Hook's as he continued to sit. "Now, are you ready to get underway, back to Neverland? I do hope the answer is yes, because I honestly have no desire to sit here and dilly-dally with you any longer."

"The answer _is_ yes," Hook said. "But," he added, "I would like to know what you would have done if I had said no. And be honest."

Sturmsi gave Hook her sweetest smile and she got a thoughtful look in her eyes as she responded with the most truthful answer. "I would have pierced your heart with one of my claws to kill you instantly, putting an end to your pathetic excuse for a life, and then I would have taken Smee aboard der _Bestrafer_, pressing him to serve out the rest of his mournful days as my bosun while discarding your ship right here, along with the remainder of your woebegone crew, leaving them stranded to suffer a slow death should they have proven unwilling to commit suicide before succumbing to their starvation. Unless, of course, Calypso had returned in my absence to kindly dispatch them to die Schwarzeseele that dwells in the dark depths of these dead waters."

"Aye. I expected as much," Hook replied rather indifferently, as though the prospect of death didn't bother him at this point. And, in truth, it really didn't, because the only reason that he still clung to life now was for his strong instinct of self-preservation that had yet to be overridden. "Being that you realize, as I'm sure you do, that the _Roger_ is in no shape to sail anywhere at the moment, I suspect you intend to carry her then?"

"Aye, that won't be a problem," Sturmsi said. "In fact, it will be necessary, not to mention more expedient."

"Very well," Hook said. "Go on and do what you've got to do then. You won't be getting any more resistance from me."

"Good," Sturmsi replied. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I've some work to do," And with that, she walked around the chair to make for the door so that she could leave.

"Captain Sturmsi, one moment please," Hook called after her, making her pause, and she turned her head to face him once again with her hand on the doorknob.

"Yes?" she responded.

"Begging your pardon, but there is one more thing that I would like to ask you about, if you wouldn't mind too terribly much," Hook said.

"Alright," Sturmsi conceded as she removed her hand from the doorknob and turned the rest of the way back around, though she remained by the door. "What is it?"

"Earlier, before the storm came that nearly destroyed my ship, something strange happened," Hook began. "Not that the storm itself wasn't strange, mind you, but I'm referring to something of a more personal nature to me. I confided in you before, back when we were both still in Neverland, about a...hallucination, or whatever it was that I'd experienced then. Do you recall that?"

"Yes," Sturmsi replied. "What about it?"

"I had another one out here. It was about..." Hook trailed off, reluctant to continue, but feeling that it was important to do so. But before he did, he cleared his throat and rose from his chair to walk across the deck and stand close to Sturmsi so that he could tell her about it more quietly. It was purely an instinctive action though, as he still had no idea that Mullins was sitting just outside the window. For if Hook had found out about that, Mullins would have had his ears boxed so hard that not even a sound boxing by Don Donelli himself would have held a candle to it, and then Mullins wouldn't have been able to hear anything else for quite some time, assuming that he was lucky enough to survive long enough to ever hear anything again.

As Hook then continued speaking to Sturmsi in a hushed voice that was practically a whisper, Mullins strained to make out what he was saying, but it was to no avail.

Hook told Sturmsi all about the visions he'd had after he'd contemplated cannibalizing Cookson, which he also admitted to, when he'd been starving and growing desperate to find a way to survive. Then he took a step back from her as he continued speaking a normal tone of voice. "Thinking back on it, after the storm had ended, I realized that it was far too similar to the one I'd had previously to be a mere coincidence. What do you make of that?"

"Perhaps it was a premonition," Sturmsi replied. "And before you scoff at that, know that I realize you're not typically inclined to believe in such things. However, you admitted it's unlikely a coincidence. I agree. So I think what you saw in your last vision, as well as the first one, was probably what would have really happened if you hadn't been interrupted by Calypso's storm." Then Sturmsi laughed a bit and smiled as she realized the great irony in that. "I suppose you have her to thank for that, as much as you have me to thank for bringing an end to it."

"I'm so glad that you're always able to find humor in such things," Hook retorted sarcastically.

"I am too," Sturmsi replied truthfully. "Maybe you should learn to do the same. It might help you lighten up a bit."

"Oh, I'll lighten up all right," Hook insisted. "Just as soon as I have lightened up Peter Pan of his lifeblood and found my way back to the Spanish Main, and then back to Blighty. The right _version_ of it, of course."

"Right," Sturmsi said as she rolled her eyes.

"I don't believe it, though," Hook added. "That it was a premonition, I mean. As in, a prediction of the future."

"Why not?" Sturmsi asked.

Hook placed his hand against the frame of the door in a subconscious attempt to intimidate Sturmsi, though he didn't quite realizing that he was doing it, at least not for that reason, as it was simply a normal routine that was imbedded in his programming. "It's not because it involves metaphysics, if that's what you're thinking. No, I'm far beyond that stage of denial by now. It's simply because I know myself, and I can tell you that I would _never_ regress to such a state of pure...animality. It's not in my nature as a gentleman, I assure you."

"Are you quite sure about that?" Sturmsi asked skeptically as something about her eyes changed so that they became extra shiny, so much that Hook could clearly see his reflection in them as their pupils seemed to be replaced with his own image. And, for some reason, he really didn't like what he saw there.

"Yes, I am," Hook replied sternly, ignoring the really bad feeling he got just then. "Besides, I've never been prone to any psychic ability," he added, to reassure himself more than anyone else.

"Fine. Believe whatever you like, Captain. It's none of my concern," Sturmsi said without sympathy as she shifted her gaze to Hook's arm, which was a just bit to close to her face for her comfort. She mused at its size and was reminded that Hook's body in general was so large that it was almost too hard to believe that he was really a human; juxtaposed with the rest of his crewmen, the difference was so staggering that he may as well be considered a different species. "Now, do you mind? I'd like to get moving," she added hotly as she shot her eyes back at his face, biting her tongue as she resisted the urge to call him a sasquatch. Instead, she made the strings of light in her eyes move in a counterclockwise rotation so that they resembled the blades of fans.

"Aye, you're dismissed," Hook said jokingly as he pulled his hand away from the door and straightened himself so that he was no longer leaning over his guest, who he'd nearly forgotten was smaller than him only because she chose to be, and that could change at the drop of a hat. However, he couldn't help feeling proud of himself for managing to get away with his behavior towards the little demoness, for he attributed this feat to his shrewd sense of wit, debonair, and charm, traits that he apparently possessed in such abundance, he thought, that it was enough to subdue the ire of such a typically churlish creature. Despite Sturmsi's repeated assertions that her level of restraint in his presence was only due to her affinity with Smee. But Hook didn't believe that was quite the whole truth. And maybe, just maybe, he was right about that.

This gave Sturmsi a really good laugh as she let herself out of the cabin, to return to her ship and make ready to embark on the trip back to Neverland, leaving Hook to stew in his juices, which he began doing as soon as he had closed the door and went to stand by his chair again. Then he looked down at the bottle of port that was still sitting open upon the table where he'd left it, and noted that it was more than half-empty now. Taking it by the neck, he killed it by chugging the rest.

As soon as Sturmsi had departed from the _Roger_ and Mullins felt that it was safe enough for him to move, he crept quietly away from Hook's window and then made his way back down to Billy's workshop, to confide in him the information that he'd just gathered, for Billy was the only shipmate that he trusted enough to tell about it at the moment. And he wanted to tell someone, just for the sake of telling.

Hook continued to just stand there like he was with the empty bottle dangling from his hand for several more minutes, contemplating the horrid prospect of returning to Neverland and hoping beyond hope that the compass Sturmsi had made mention of truly did exist, and also that he would be able to find it, for it really was the only thing that he had to hope for at this point. And as he became lost in the sea of his thoughts, that dreadful feeling he'd experienced a moment ago while seeing himself in Sturmsi's eyes, which was dreadful to him because it made him question himself, began to seep back into his mind again. He shook his head to bail the taint from it before it could render him as the very madman that he'd seen himself as. "SMEE!!!" he called out then at the top of his lungs while still not bothering to move. "Bosun SMEEEE!!!"

- - - - - -

"So, anyhow, that's what I heard 'em say," Mullins told Billy as he finished his story. He was leaning against the inner bulkhead next to the hatch of the workshop with his arms crossed while he chewed on a toothpick, periodically glancing into the outer hallway to make sure that no one was there.

"Well, that's interesting, cully, I'll give you that," Billy said sincerely as he paused his work of stoking the forge and tried to make some sense of the information he'd just been given. But then he remembered that most things had stopped making sense to him a long time ago, if they ever had to begin with. That much he couldn't remember. And almost everything seemed pointless to him by now. Neverland, Captain Hook and his obsession with Peter Pan, Sturmsi and the _Bestrafer_, and now this Dead Expanse. It felt to him as if the world had lost all its meaning, and he was beginning to think that perhaps it never had any. Everything was out of whack, he thought. Everything but the forge, that is. And the one man who'd ever shown any semblance of kindness to him. Two of the only three things that had kept him going, the third being Slightly, or having been. Then he turned his head to look at Mullins, forcing himself to smile until the smile became natural. "I'm not sure what good it does me to know all that, but thanks for sharing." Then he turned back to the forge and began poking at the embers again with a sigh as he started to think about Slightly and how much he missed him. He wondered if Slightly missed him too, and he hoped that the answer was no. Because he felt that his younger friend and the rest of the Lost Boys had to be much better off without him and the other pirates, especially Hook, mucking up their lives as they had been doing for so long. Billy had always felt a bit guilty about that. And now that they were returning to Neverland, however temporarily, he couldn't help but contradict his better judgment and hope that Slightly would come to visit him one last time, despite the fact that he fully expected the boy to be angry with him because Billy had not bothered to tell him that they were leaving, and so he knew that it must have come as a shock to him. But Billy had chosen to avoid that emotional confrontation as he felt that no good would have come of it, and it would have just made things even harder for both of them.

"Well, it might just come in handy some time. Ya never know," Mullins commented, and after Billy had turned to look at him again, he gave the boy a sly wink. "Besides, I had the urge to tell someone, an' you's the only swab aboard this ship I can count on not to go blabbing it around so's the wrong catcher don't get wind of it, if ya know what I mean."

"Aye," Billy replied as he resumed his task again. "I'm glad Hook didn't catch you, and you better be too. He'da skinned you alive, you know. Right there in fronna God an' everyone, no doubt."

"_Psh_, I'da showed him a thing or two before he took me out though," said Mullins with a defiant sneer.

"Uh-huh," Billy agreed with a smile. "I know you would, shipmate, but then who'd I have to talk to anymore afterwards?"

Mullins laughed. "Maybe you oughta make friends with Smee," he joked.

"Yeah right," Billy replied as his grin faltered. "Smee doesn't give a shit about anyone but the captain."

"I know," Mullins said. "It'll be the death of him someday though, mark my words."

"Probably," Billy agreed.

"Anyways, I meant to ask you somethin' earlier, but I chickened out," Mullins told him.

"What is it?" Billy asked curiously, not having any idea what it could be that Mullins would be afraid to ask him.

"I know you been tired and all since you got back, from being sick before, and I understand that, but there's somethin' else. You know it and I know it," Mullins said firmly.

"What do you mean?" Billy questioned with a confused look.

"Don't kid me, boy, I know ya all too well," Mullins said. "Somethin' else is botherin' you, somethin's got under your skin. From that devil ship, ain't it? Now let's talk about it and get it out inna air so it don't fester and cause problems for us down the line. You know what I mean?"

Billy was silent. He did know exactly what Mullins was talking about, but he didn't think his problem was so obvious, and he really didn't want to talk about it. Nonetheless, he knew he had to say something to reassure Mullins of his condition. "It's not from that ship. That's not what's been weighing on my mind. It's...it's something that happened to me a long time ago, on another ship I served on as a cabin boy way before I ever even met you. Something I've tried long and hard to forget, mind you. And it's just that something on the _Bestrafer_ reminded me of it, that's all. But I'll be alright soon enough, so just don't worry about it. Ok?"

Mullins looked at Billy with a concern expression as his worry grew tenfold, not understanding what sort of thing could have happened that he would be so reluctant to talk to him about it. "But don't ya wanna talk about it? Don't ya think maybe you should?"

"Maybe, but not right now," Billy replied as he averted his eyes from Mullin's. "Not until after we get things sorted out and Sturmsi gets her nasty ship away from us."

"What the hell was it you saw over there, Billy?" Mullins prodded quietly as he walked over to stand right in front of Billy.

Billy sighed, realizing that it was going to be harder than he'd expected to get Mullins to drop the subject. "I don't rightly know what it was I was looking at," Billy admitted truthfully. "But no one did anything to hurt me. And, like I said before, I wouldn't be here right now if Sturmsi hadn't done what she did. All she did was give me some medicine, some food and clean water, and a warm bed to sleep in. And I'm grateful for it, and so should you be if you care anything for me."

"Alright, I'll let off it," Mullins replied in a defeated tone. "For now."

"Thanks, Mullins," Billy said, and they both stood there in an awkward silence for a few moments. Then, without any warning, something Billy couldn't even begin to explain welled up inside him. He abruptly turned away from Mullins and absently poked at the forge again to try and make it go away. But it wasn't enough, and it made him start to cry. He was so embarrassed by it but he couldn't make himself stop, though he tried very hard to, and that made him want to cry even harder. In effect, he was forced to turn away from the forge to keep from burning himself on it.

Mullins was taken aback by this and, not knowing what else to do, he pulled Billy into his arms and gave him a friendly hug, patting him on the back for a few moments before releasing him to see if that helped any. Now he really felt guilty for letting Sturmsi take Billy aboard the _Bestrafer_, thinking that she was the sole source of whatever was tormenting his young friend, not knowing that there was much more to it than that.

That did make Billy feel better and so he was able to stop crying. For now. But he couldn't talk now, not about his problem, and he didn't know when he ever would be able to. So he just looked up at Mullins with a grateful expression as he wiped the tears from his face.

The older pirate chose not to press him any further about it, shaking his head as he turned it to the side to look at the wall, deciding that it was best to wait for Billy to come out with it on his own. Whenever that would be, he didn't know, and though it would worry him a lot in the meantime, he felt that it would happen soon enough, one way or another. Because Mullins did know Billy well enough to know that even though it was obviously something very personal, and neither of them liked talking about really personal matters, the youngster wouldn't be able to keep it bottled up forever, and that he would be the only one that Billy could confide it to. Except for maybe Slightly, he thought in retrospect, and he made a mental note to keep an eye out for that boy after they got back to Neverland. He was also worried that if he was wrong, and Billy did keep it bottled up for too long, it might explode at a bad time, like in front of the captain. And that's what worried Mullins the most, because he knew just how insensitive Hook was and would undoubtedly be towards whatever plight that Billy was suffering, and then there was no telling what any of them would wind up doing as a result.


End file.
